Why the Gender Action Plan Matters More Than Ever

As delegates packed their bags and departed Bonn following the conclusion of the 64th Session of the UN Climate Change Subsidiary Bodies (SB64), one truth remained impossible to ignore: climate action that fails to center gender justice will continue to fail the very communities living on the frontlines of the climate crisis.

For African feminists, this is not a new conversation. Across the continent, women and girls are already navigating the daily realities of climate disruption. They are walking longer distances in search of water as droughts intensify across the Horn of Africa. They are rebuilding livelihoods after devastating floods sweep through communities in East and West Africa. They are holding together households, farms, food systems and local economies while carrying an invisible and unpaid care burden that grows heavier with every climate shock.

Yet despite being among the first responders to climate impacts, women continue to be underrepresented in climate decision-making spaces and underserved by climate finance systems. This is precisely why the implementation of the Belém Gender Action Plan matters.

Adopted at COP30 in Brazil, the Belém Gender Action Plan provides a long-term framework to integrate gender equality across climate governance, finance, adaptation, mitigation, technology transfer and capacity strengthening from 2026 to 2034. The discussions in Bonn marked the first major test of whether governments are prepared to move beyond celebrating the adoption of the plan and begin the harder work of implementation.

From Commitments to Accountability

Throughout the negotiations, the conversation repeatedly returned to one question: how do we ensure that gender commitments move from paper to practice?

The answer emerging from Bonn was clear. Gender-responsive climate action requires institutions, budgets, accountability mechanisms, and political will.

Parties engaged in discussions on strengthening the role of national gender and climate change focal points, improving the collection of gender- and age-disaggregated data, and ensuring that national climate policies are informed by the lived realities of women and marginalized communities. The first annual dialogue on gender-responsive climate finance and technical discussions on gender data signaled an important shift from broad commitments towards implementation architecture.

For African women’s rights organizations, this matters deeply. Without data, women’s realities remain invisible. Without budgets, commitments remain aspirations. Without accountability, climate policy risks reproducing the same inequalities it claims to address.

The implementation of the Gender Action Plan, therefore, cannot become another reporting exercise. It must result in women farmers accessing climate-resilient technologies, women-led organizations receiving direct climate finance, and communities having meaningful influence over decisions that affect their futures.

Climate Finance is a Feminist Issue

If there was one frustration that echoed loudly through Bonn’s negotiation rooms, it was finance. Developing countries and civil society organizations repeatedly emphasized that implementation without resources is simply another form of delay. Discussions around adaptation finance revealed growing tensions between developing and developed countries, particularly around previously agreed commitments to significantly increase support for adaptation efforts. Several negotiations ended without the level of ambition many countries from the Global South had hoped to see.

For African feminists, the implications are immediate and deeply personal. When climate finance fails to arrive, women absorb the costs. They absorb it through failed harvests and food insecurity. They absorb it through increased unpaid labour caring for children, older persons and sick family members during climate emergencies. They absorb it through displacement, income loss, and heightened exposure to violence and insecurity.

Climate finance is therefore not merely a technical issue negotiated in conference rooms in Bonn or Belém. It is a feminist issue. It is about determining whose lives are protected, whose labour is valued and whose futures are prioritised.

The demand from feminist movements remains clear: climate finance must be predictable, accessible, grant-based and reach grassroots communities directly rather than becoming trapped in layers of international bureaucracy.

The Care Economy Entered the Climate Conversation

Among the most transformative conversations emerging from Bonn was the growing recognition that care itself is climate infrastructure.

A side event convened by Women’s Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, and Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMwA) challenged negotiators to rethink what a just transition actually means.

For too long, just transition conversations have focused almost exclusively on energy systems and labour markets. Feminist organizations argued that a truly just transition must also recognize the unpaid and underpaid care work that sustains households, communities and economies, particularly during climate crises.

When floods displace families, someone cares for children. When droughts destroy livelihoods, someone finds ways to feed households despite shrinking resources. When health systems become overwhelmed during climate emergencies, someone provides care within communities. More often than not, that person is a woman.

Across Africa, climate change is dramatically increasing unpaid care work, reducing women’s time for education, leadership, paid employment, and political participation. The burden remains largely invisible within economic systems despite underpinning community resilience itself. Bonn offered an important opportunity to challenge that invisibility and advance the idea of a care-centered just transition.

A transition that simply replaces fossil fuels while preserving unequal care structures cannot be called just. A feminist just transition must invest not only in renewable energy and infrastructure, but also in health systems, social protection, public services and community care systems that sustain life.

So What Was the Decision?

Unlike a COP, the Bonn meetings are not designed to produce landmark political declarations. Their role is to translate previous decisions into implementation pathways and prepare the ground for negotiations at the next COP.

In that sense, SB64 achieved something important.

The meeting effectively launched the implementation phase of the Belém Gender Action Plan. Parties participated in mandated dialogues on gender-responsive climate finance, gender data and the role of national gender and climate focal points. The conversations established priorities for implementation and reinforced expectations around accountability, participation and financing as countries move towards COP31 in Antalya.

What Bonn did not deliver, however, was the level of financial ambition necessary to make these commitments a reality for communities on the ground. And therein lies the challenge. The global climate process has become fluent in the language of implementation while remaining hesitant to finance it.

The Road Ahead

As the world turns its attention towards COP31, African feminist movements will continue asking the questions that matter.

Who receives climate finance?

Whose knowledge shapes climate policy?

Who bears the costs when adaptation funding falls short?

Whose labour remains invisible within climate solutions?

The answers to these questions will determine whether the Belém Gender Action Plan becomes a transformative instrument for climate justice or simply another well-written document within the UN system.

For FEMNET and feminist movements across Africa, the vision remains unchanged.

There can be no just transition without care.

There can be no climate justice without gender justice.

And there can be no gender justice without shifting power, resources and decision-making into the hands of the women and communities who have been carrying the burden of the climate crisis for far too long.

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