Gender-Just Climate Solutions

The Women and Gender Constituency knows that the solutions to the climate crisis are already here, built every day by women, gender-diverse people, and frontline communities. What is missing is the recognition, resources, and political will to scale them up.

Since 2015, the Gender Just Climate Solutions Awards have celebrated and amplified these transformative, locally-driven initiatives. From renewable energy projects led by women in rural communities, to collective land and water stewardship, to feminist climate advocacy reshaping policy, these solutions prove that climate action can advance gender equality, strengthen democracy, and protect our planet.

Each year, three winning solutions and more than a dozen additional honorees are highlighted in our global publication and showcased at the UN Climate Negotiations. Over 150 initiatives from every region of the world are now featured in our searchable online directory, creating a living archive of feminist innovation and leadership.

Call for Applications

The 2025 Call for Applications has now closed.

Criteria for Gender Just Climate Solutions

As we focus on implementing the Paris Agreement, the Gender Just Climate Solutions provide concrete examples on how to center gender equality and women’s rights in climate action. The Awards comprise of three categories: a) Technical Solutions, b) Non-Technical Solutions, and c) Transformational Solutions and they are evaluated based on the following criteria:

  1. Provides equal access to benefits for women, men and youth
  2. Aims to alleviate and/or does not add additional burden to women’s workload (such as via additional natural resource management or care responsibilities without compensation)
  3. Empowers women through better mobility/accessibility, enhanced livelihood security, enhanced food security, improved health, access to safe water, etc. (as many benefits as possible)
  4. Promotes women’s democratic rights and participation by ensuring decision-making by local women, men, women’s groups, cooperatives and communities
  5. Locally led and/or locally driven (decentralized and appropriate)
  6. Ensures self-sufficiency & a low input of resources (safe, affordable and sustainable)
  7. Contributes to climate change mitigation, emissions reduction and/or climate adaptation (the project is sustainable)
  8. Results can be shared, spread & scaled up (replicable elsewhere, not just benefiting one individual)
  9. Shows interlinkages to cross-cutting issues, such as (including, but not restricted to) peace-building, natural resources management, food security and/or health, water and sanitation

Sponsors

The program is more than an award. It is a platform for movement-building. It connects grassroots leaders with global policymakers, shifts power to those most impacted, and demonstrates that gender-just approaches are not only possible but essential for a liveable future.

Explore the directory, meet the awardees, and be inspired to demand climate policies that put care, justice, and rights at the center of solutions.

A gender-just transition is not just the future we need. It is already being built.

Annual publications

This database can be filtered for over 150 solutions from 2015 to 2023 by Country, Region, Topic, and/or Featured As (awardee, honoree, or WGC member solution). The 2024 awardees and honorees will be uploaded to the directory soon.

Learning library

This database can be filtered for over 150 solutions from 2015 to 2023 by Country, Region, Topic, and/or Featured As (awardee, honoree, or WGC member solution). The 2024 awardees and honorees will be uploaded to the directory soon.

Explore the Solutions Directory

The Gender Just Climate Solutions Directory is a global collection of more than 150 transformative, locally-driven climate initiatives recognized by the GJCS Awards since 2015.

Browse solutions by country, region, or theme to see how communities are advancing renewable energy, sustainable farming, land and water stewardship, feminist advocacy, and more. Each entry includes details on the project’s design, impact, and organizational contacts to support learning, collaboration, and scale.

Start exploring the directory and get inspired by what gender-just climate action looks like in practice.

Awardee

Tajik mountain women leading the solar energy just transition

Year: 2024

Country: Tajikistan

Topics: Capacity-Building, Community Education, Energy Transition

Region: Asia-Pacific

Awardee

Zág women defending earth and climate

Year: 2024

Country: Brazil

Topics: Biodiversity, Capacity-Building, Community Education, Healthy Ecosystems

Region: Latin America and the Caribbean

Awardee

Women leading on all fronts to save the ocean

Year: 2024

Country: Mozambique

Topics: Business, Circular Economy, Entrepreneurship, Sustainable Livelihoods, Waste Management

Region: Anglophone Africa

Honoree

Fostering women’s leadership in climate resilient agriculture

Year: 2024

Country: Zimbabwe

Topics: Biodiversity, Business, Entrepreneurship, Healthy Ecosystems, Sustainable Livelihoods

Region: Anglophone Africa

Honoree

COMPACT, social innovation for low-carbon construction no information

Year: 2024

Country: Senegal

Topics: Business, Entrepreneurship, Sustainable Livelihoods

Region: Francophone Africa

Awardee

Build for Safety: women contributing to climate resilient housing in Bangladesh

Year: 2023

Country: Bangladesh

Topics: Business, Entrepreneurship, Sustainable Livelihoods

Region: Asia-Pacific

Awardee

Indigenous women uniting to bolster their knowledge and resilience to climate impacts In progress

Year: 2023

Country: Kenya

Topics: Biodiversity, Capacity-Building, Community Education, Healthy Ecosystems

Region: Anglophone Africa

Awardee

Feminist framework for gender equitable climate disaster response

Year: 2023

Country: Pakistan

Topics: Decision Making, Governance

Region: Asia-Pacific