Climate resilience includes adapting to changes in both physical surroundings and social environments. For example, women around the world have demonstrated resilience to climatic changes that jeopardize their safety. Gender-based violence (GBV) occurs when women are targeted and harmed based on their gender. As the likelihood of GBV rises with increasing environmental degradation, women need to continue to adapt to climate change to strengthen their resilience to its impacts.
The Resilient, Inclusive and Sustainable Environments (RISE) grants challenge is a first-of-its-kind grant fund that supports activities designed to address GBV in environment and climate change programs and generate evidence on promising interventions. Managed by IUCN and funded by USAID and Norad, the RISE grants challenge supports projects in preventing, mitigating, and responding to GBV across environment and climate contexts in Asia, Latin America, and sub-Saharan Africa. Its mission is to produce learning and knowledge tools that can be adapted and used in environmental activities in other areas and regions. The 2023 Call for Proposals resulted in the submission of 814 applications, 663 of which focused on climate change and GBV linkages.
This year, IUCN and its partners announced four projects as the newest cohort of the RISE grants challenge:
The Resource-ful Empowerment Project: Addressing GBV for the Green Transition in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
The extraction of tin, tantalum, and tungsten—the 3Ts—is considered vital for greening the global economy. However, women workers at the artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) sites where extraction occurs in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo have experienced sexual harassment and sexual exploitation. Action pour la Sauvegarde de l’Enfant et de la Femme Abandonnés (ASEFA) is leading the Resource-ful Empowerment Project to address sexual exploitation in ASM sites through grassroots community education and social norms change mobilization. Continuing a previous RISE grants challenge project, ASEFA will also promote environmental sustainability training on safe mining practices, focusing on the protection of the environment and the people in ASM sites.
Women RISE for Nature: Identifying GBV and Land Rights Violations in Kenya
Competition for land has increased since the introduction of carbon credit projects in several regions of Kenya, negatively impacting women's land rights. Because of harassment, threats, and physical assault by those close to them, women have been forced to give up their land to protect their safety. In response, TMG Research gGmbH (TMG) developed Haki Ardhi, a decentralized tenure rights reporting and monitoring tool. Haki Ardhi, which means “land justice” in Swahili, records GBV related to land disputes in order to provide legal and psychosocial referrals. Collected data will be used to identify GBV and land rights violation hotspots. Along with Haki Ardhi, the Women RISE for Nature project will also work on sensitization of male community members to mitigate rights violations and support women's equitable participation in carbon credit projects.
Cultivating Change and Breaking Barriers: Combating GBV Through Women’s Cooperatives in Guatemala
GBV threatens Indigenous women at higher rates than any other group in Guatemala. The city of Totonicapán has seen an increase in physical, sexual, and psychological violence against these women as a result of climate and conflict-related outmigration by men into the area. Gender norms have restricted their ability to engage in economic growth. Justice Education Society of BC has partnered with local organizations to establish COPRODA, Guatemala’s newest women-owned farming cooperative. The initiative seeks to empower women and men to address GBV together through both active participation of women in the cooperative and GBV mitigation training.
RESIST: Raising Awareness of GBV Against Women Environmental Human Rights Defenders in Nepal
Indigenous women in Nepal’s Kailali District have been targeted because of their practice of managing and using natural resources for their livelihoods. Community Forest User Groups (CFUGs) restrict these women from decision making, and forest guards use physical violence to deny them access to essential timber and non-timber products. Providing safe access to forest resources through GBV mitigation, DanChurchAid will work to ensure these women can contribute to climate adaptation and mitigation. The RESIST project will use survivor-centered storytelling to raise awareness of GBV in the sector and male champions to advocate for gender equality within CFUGs.
For more information on the RISE grants challenge, please visit https://genderandenvironment.org/rise-challenge/.
Jason Ocampo
Jason Ocampo is a Gender Programme Support Officer for the Human Rights In Conservation Team at IUCN. His work focuses on gender-based violence, primarily through supporting the management of the RISE grants challenge. He is a graduate of Binghamton University, with a degree in Human Development from the College of Community and Public Affairs.
