Investing in women and girls is good for women, the climate, and the planet

Worldwide, women are increasingly leading the fight to protect, manage, and restore our natural resources, despite persistent disparities in resource access and decision-making worsened by climate change. Gender equity correlates with higher incomes, faster economic growth, enhanced productivity, reduced hunger and malnutrition, improved rural livelihoods, and on. Women leaders also play a pivotal role in spreading new social norms by persuading others to adopt sustainable and climate-friendly practices.

Globally, Rare is mainstreaming gender equity into our work and working to balance equity concerns with building resilience to climate change and environmental degradation.

How Rare promotes gender equity for women and girls

Rare leverages behavioral and social science to promote gender equity. To do this, we address the social norms, attitudes, behaviors, and systems that underlie inequity. Since the normative obstacles are many (e.g., the perception that women shouldn’t own property or control money and that they must depend on men for their livelihoods), Rare focuses on shifting mindsets and behaviors of many actors toward gender equity, including men and boys, government officials, teachers, parents, and women and girls.

Below are some of the specific ways we promote gender equity across our programs:

	Support women to participate in natural resource management and decision-making Rare actively involves women in conservation management and decision-making processes, ensuring their voices are heard and their perspectives are considered. Examples of our strategies include: Supporting local fishing and farming communities to form inclusive and transparent management bodies and committees. Integrating gender considerations into program design, delivery, and monitoring, e.g., designing gender-responsive quantitative and qualitative research, training, social marketing campaigns, and fisheries and household, micro, and small business management plans and collecting sex-disaggregated household-level data to inform and account for women’s efforts,
	Build women’s capacity to engage in conservation efforts Rare provides training, education, and resources to empower women with the skills and knowledge needed to participate fully in conservation efforts, including leadership roles.  This may include financial literacy training, leading Campaigning for Conservation campaigns and participating in the BE.Center’s Behavior-Centered Design workshops. Upcoming trainings
	Provide access to and use of financial information and services Rare addresses the unique challenges and barriers faced by women in accessing natural resources and their benefits to ensure equitable distribution and outcomes. Such access and use may include access to basic banking, savings accounts, formal loans, insurance, training, and extension services. About Rare’s green & Blue finance priority About Rare’s Innovative Finance program

Explore our work promoting gender equity

Rare promotes gender equity by addressing the social norms, attitudes, behaviors and systems that perpetuate social inequity.