GGCA Gender and Climate Change Training Manual - Women's ...

funds that are designed for large-scale, well capitalized projects. Ultimately, the
delivery mechanisms of climate change financing may not be very conducive
to the existing level and scope of operations run by women either in the farming,
business or household sector. Empirical verification of these issues can only be
determined by closer examination of the operations of the climate change
financing architecture, including its instruments and mechanisms.
Box 1 Rigidities and challenges in the national and global financial markets
There are well known rigidities and challenges in the national and global financial markets
that act to block or distort women’s access to economic resources, credit and finance in
the credit and money markets. Women are under-represented in climate change decisionmaking
fora. The concerns, priorities and issues of women are marginal to the operations
of climate change financing decision makers. Nonetheless, the consequences of decision
making in terms of what projects and programmes are financed, and by what means, are
also borne by women.
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It may also be the case that the same types of gender-based constraints (such as inequality
in property rights) that create problems for women in the regular financial markets, may
also operate in the context of climate change financing. Such constraints are interlinked
with discriminatory norms in the financial markets resulting in inefficiency in resource
allocation.
Though there has been very little research on the gender dynamics of climate change
financing, if the gender segmentation that is so common in the regular financial markets
persists, then it can be expected that:
• Women will tend to ask for smaller loans than men (in the area of climate change
financing this may be manifested in terms of the predominance of women in smallscale
projects);
• Women tend to give credit to women, so where gender considerations and criteria are
not important to the review of project proposals and decision making about approval
and disbursement of funds, the ratio of women’s projects selected may be lower;
• Women will borrow from special programmes, which have smaller lending limits;
• Women will face higher interest rates or greater transaction costs (due to the size of
their projects);
• Women will tend to have less access to, and excess demand for, credit (in this case,
many women and women’s groups may have numerous projects that require climate
change financing but face a limited supply of finance).