Global: How Funders are Addressing Climate-Driven Violence for Women Workers

Mar 7, 2025 | Devex Partnerships
Devex
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Climate change is a threat multiplier, amplifying existing risks and vulnerabilities, including structural inequality and workplace exploitation, which has been found to drive more extreme gender-based violence and harassment — or GBVH — including physical, mental, sexual, verbal, and economic violence for women workers across the informal, industrial, and agricultural sectors. Despite the urgent need for intersectional approaches to climate, labor, and gender justice, funders have long separated grant funding for climate and gender justice, with less than 0.1% of all philanthropic funding focusing on gender and the environment.

However, as women workers take urgent action to defend their rights in a changing climate, funders are creating innovative solutions to support their cutting-edge work. Devex spoke with Monica Aleman, international program director for gender, racial, and ethnic justice at the Ford Foundation; Jessica Brown, senior director of adaptation and resilience at ClimateWorks Foundation; Laura García, president and CEO of Global Greengrants Fund; Nivedita Jayaram, thematic lead for movement and labor at Women's Fund Asia; and Nicolette Naylor, founder and CEO of Ubuntu Global Philanthropy & Gender Justice Consulting, about how funders can support women worker-led initiatives at the intersection of climate change and GBVH.