November 12, 2022, BRIDGETOWN, Barbados – The Caribbean is sounding a rallying call to the rest of the world to change how it finances climate action, including by taking gender into account when financing climate investments.
“Today is remarkable because our region is courageous enough to call for a reset of the development financing agenda to address the needs of our most vulnerable. We offer new solutions for this. Let us rally as SIDs at COP27 to make development and private equity financing more inclusive, sustainable, and resilient,” urged Vice-President of Operations at the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), Isaac Solomon.

He was speaking on Thursday, November 10 at ‘Gender Lens Investing for Caribbean Resilience’. The panel discussion, coordinated by CDB and UN Women Multi-Country Office Caribbean, was held in the CARICOM Pavilion at COP 27, the United Nations’ climate change conference currently underway in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

Solomon stressed that as of now, the proportion of gender inclusive climate finance is not nearly where it needs to be.

“The Climate Policy Institute estimated that fewer than 5% of private, public, and blended climate finance was gender-responsive in 2020. The data shows that globally and regionally, gender-responsive and socially inclusive climate finance is still too low [yet] gender-smart and socially inclusive public and private climate investing is a game-changer,” said the CDB Vice-President.

The reasons why this is needed were highlighted by Trinidad and Tobago’s Minister of Planning and Development, Hon. Pennelope Beckles, who pointed to the disproportionate impact of climate change on the Caribbean region and the nexus between that and lingering gender inequality.

“If you think about the aftermath of any hurricane in the Caribbean, women are a lot more impacted than men. They are the ones [expected] to do the cleaning and cooking when there might be no clean water, they have to protect families when shelter might be an issue and they themselves are in a vulnerable position and then they may also face challenges with matters we might not necessarily want to discuss, like hygiene and menstrual health,” stated Beckles.

She emphasised that these are key factors which must be considered and should be incorporated at the very outset when financing climate resilience investments.

Anita Bhatia, Assistant Secretary-General, and Deputy Executive Director of UN Women elaborated on this point, emphasising that incorporating gender would ensure climate investments will actually be sustainable and long-lasting.

“The way investments stand the test of time is to not only be commercially viable, but it must be inclusive, it must deliver social impact at scale and that means reaching the most vulnerable in a meaningful way,” said Bhatia.