Investing in Women

Women’s knowledge, skills, and ideas are crucial to the success of low-carbon development and resilience-building. When empowered to make decisions, take action, innovate, and drive change, they deliver results – from the local to the national level. Yet social, economic, and cultural norms often limit women’s ability to make their voices heard or fully participate in activities outside their home. Unequal access to key resources such as land, credit, technical training, and technology can also make women and girls more vulnerable to environmental impacts.

CIF has made it a priority to ensure its investments benefit women and men equally – while recognizing their distinct perspectives, situations, and needs. Through approaches tailored to each context, CIF-financed projects have enabled women and girls across the globe to gain new skills and knowledge, boost their income, take jobs in non-traditional fields, become entrepreneurs, access credit to invest in their households or businesses, and have a greater say in decision-making in their community.

Many projects have also enabled women to access modern energy sources, clean water, and transportation, enhancing their quality of life and livelihoods, and some have helped them to secure land tenure. In addition, some projects have contributed to changing formal policies and informal social norms to strengthen women’s agency and voice and promote their leadership.

In some contexts, to foster prosperous communities may require deep changes to overcome barriers to women’s full participation in institutional processes and in the economy. CIF is committed to working with governments, communities, and the private sector to identify to remove such barriers and expand opportunities for women and girls.

In all this work, we also recognize that many factors can affect people’s experiences and their ability to thrive: from age, to education, income, physical (dis)abilities, or being Indigenous or part of another minority group. At CIF, we are committed to supporting the success of all people reached by our investments.