Building gender into climate finance: ADB experience with the climate investment funds

The Climate Investment Funds (CIF) expand ADB’s investments in mitigation and adaptation measures in developing member countries and are its largest source of external finance for climate change. This report confirms ADB’s and the CIF’s shared commitment to mainstreaming gender equality in climate change and showcases how this priority is being integrated into the design of ADB’s CIF-funded projects. The nine projects presented here cover a wide range of investments under the CIF, including clean technology, renewable energy, and climate resilience.

The design elements of ADB’s CIF projects were analyzed with respect to gender equity, from the vantage point of the four gender mainstreaming categories for ADB projects:

• mitigation and gender equity: clean energy for women’s use or benefit and enhanced participation of women in mitigation actions;
• adaptation and gender equity: climate-resilient infrastructure benefiting women and involvement of women in enhancing resilience;
• gender equity cobenefits: benefits to women, including benefits from mitigation actions or from the use of climate-resilient infrastructure, but excluding the core climate change aspects of the project; and
• standard gender equity design elements: involvement of women in design and implementation in a manner “generic” to all gender-mainstreamed projects of ADB.