Remarks delivered by Dr. Grethel Aguilar Rojas, Deputy Director General, Regions and Outposted Offices, IUCN

Esteemed colleagues, your excellencies, friends, thank you very much; it is a great pleasure to be with you today and to mark this historic momentum, and this vital, renewed energy to fully realize – at long last – a Generation of Equality.

Allow me to thank the Government of France, the Government of Mexico and UN WOMEN for their leadership and vision.

      Photo: IUCN

As the world’s oldest and largest conservation Union (IUCN),  we know that Climate resilience – climate justice – can only be realized with gender equality.  It is time to face the most persistent of barriers and pave the way for a gender-responsive approach that ushers transformation and sustainability.

The Climate Justice blueprint is both visionary and practical; ambitious but doable; collective yet individual in our responsibility and our commitment to act.  So this is what we will do:

IUCN, together with the United States Agency for International Development, USAID, is pleased to commit – through our impactful partnership AGENT (Advancing Gender in the Environment) that we will scale up our work to understand and take steps to address gender-based violence and environment linkages, particularly in the context of this climate crisis. Gender-based violence is a barrier to resilience, peace, and the well-being of individuals, communities, and healthy ecosystems.

Through our flagship Gender-Based Violence and Environment Linkages Resource Center – the first of its kind tackling this nexus of issues – we will close knowledge gaps while mobilizing action to end Gender-based violence and secure environmental sustainability.

Over the next 5 years, the Center will create tools, build capacity, convene communities of practice, and conduct research and advocacy; we will work to mobilize additional partners and donor support. We will also provide grants to environment and climate organizations working on gender-responsive climate action at all levels through the next phase of the Resilient, Inclusive and Sustainable Environments (RISE) Grants Challenge.

IUCN is also committed to continue collaborating with WEDO, UNFCCC, and many diverse leaders of the Climate Action hub to continue our decades-long work of cooperation on gender and climate change – this time strongly focused on collecting, curating and communicating gender data for improved climate policy and action.

Consider joining us as we take next steps together to build out the idea of a Gender and Environment Data Alliance, through which we can not only join capacities but realize collective impact.

We look forward to realizing the full impact of these action blueprints; to being the generation of equality.