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Representing 3.2 million informal workers across 18 states – street vendors, waste pickers, construction labourers, home-based producers and small farmers – SEWA has spent more than five decades fighting for rights and recognition.

“This is what ‘just transition’ must mean for us,” says Mansi Shah, senior coordinator at SEWA. “It is not only about future green jobs or phasing out polluting industries. For women workers on the frontlines, it is about surviving heatwaves, floods and crop failures today – and doing so with dignity.”

SEWA’s own surveys underline the urgency. More than 90% of women workers report livelihood losses from climate shocks, while 74% say their children’s education has been disrupted. Over 80% of households face water insecurity, 62% food insecurity, and nearly 40% report mental health impacts.

“When people talk about adaptation or resilience, it sounds abstract,” Shah says. “For our members, it means the difference between feeding your children and selling your dignity.”

“On one side, hungry children. On the other, her respect”

One member – a smallholder farmer – told SEWA organisers what happened when a prolonged heatwave dried her fields and wiped out any possible work as an agricultural labourer. With children to feed and no savings, she went to a local moneylender.

The terms were brutal: extortionate interest and demands for sexual favours.

“She had to choose between her children’s hunger and her own respect,” Shah says. “That is the kind of choice no woman should ever face. But climate change is forcing it every day.”

By chance, the woman had been enrolled in SEWA’s pilot parametric heat insurance scheme – designed to trigger automatic payouts when temperatures cross preset thresholds, providing fast, predictable relief when heat destroys livelihoods. On the very day she faced the moneylender, the insurance activated and 1,800 rupees (about $20) landed in her account – enough to buy food for two weeks, enough to walk away.

Climate change-driven heatwaves hit Delhi’s Red Fort market traders

Women-led solutions prove just transition works

For Meenaben, a SEWA smallholder in Kutch district, the blow came from unseasonal rain and hail. Her 1.5-acre rain-fed millet crop, almost ready for harvest – and crucial fodder for her cattle – was shredded overnight.

“Government relief can take months to reach a village,” Shah explains. “So women like Meenaben are pushed toward debt – often predatory – just to survive the gap.”

SEWA’s answer is speed and self-help. Through its Livelihood Recovery & Resilience Fund (LRRF) – a blended pool seeded by one day’s wage per member per month, matched by philanthropy – women can access rapid loans within 14 days of a climate shock, long before state compensation arrives. The fund kept Meenaben’s household afloat, paid for inputs for the next sowing, and avoided a spiral into debt.

“We can’t wait for others to save us,” says Shah. “So SEWA women build their own safety nets – and get back to work.”

From Gujarat to the Global South

After piloting its member-owned LRRF a decade ago, SEWA shared its results at a global women leaders’ meeting in 2023 with Secretary Hillary Clinton, Ambassador Melanne Verveer and women’s organisations from Africa and Latin America. The message was clear: women workers across the Global South face the same shocks and the same finance gap.

On the strength of that model, SEWA partnered with the Clinton Global Initiative to launch the Global Climate Resilience Facility (GCRF) in February 2024. Its framework is complete and fundraising is underway. Once capitalised, it will support frontline women’s organisations to run LRRF-style funds, expand parametric insurance, and scale women-led adaptation and clean-energy solutions across the Global South.

From rural daughter to solar entrepreneur

If these stories show the cost of climate shocks, Payalben Munjpura’s shows what investment unlocks.

Payalben grew up in a village of 250 households in Surendranagar district. Her father was an electrician. Like most rural daughters, she was expected to stay indoors – until SEWA persuaded her parents to let her train as a solar PV technician.

She completed a three-month course and certification, then formed a team of four. Drawing on her father’s skills, she brought him into the enterprise, saving costs and rooting the work in local expertise. Together, they now install rooftop solar systems in nearby villages through India’s new PM Surya Ghar scheme, which offers households subsidies covering up to 60% of installation costs.

Her income has transformed the family: she helped reclaim their mortgaged farm, paid for her younger brother’s education, and rebuilt their home.

“Women are always seen as energy users,” Shah says. “Payalben shows they can be owners, managers and distributors. If skills are brought to their doorstep, women will turn the climate crisis into opportunity.”

The women-led solutions already in motion

SEWA’s members are not waiting for policy promises – they are already building resilience from the ground up. Through its Building Cleaner Skies campaign, SEWA links local experience with a broader strategy of women-led adaptation.

Its Climate School turns climate science into simple visual lessons, training grassroots leaders as climate educators. Its Green Villages initiatives bring clean cooking, biogas, drip irrigation and rooftop solar – all managed by women handling finance, vendors and repairs.

Brazil’s environment minister urges heads of state to address fossil fuels at COP30

The movement also nurtures young women climate entrepreneurs who deliver adaptation technologies and green livelihoods. And when shocks hit, SEWA’s insurance and finance schemes move faster than the state, trigger quick payouts and provide loans within 14 days.

“These are not abstract pilots,” says Shah. “They are working now, in villages across Gujarat. The problem is not solutions. The problem is finance.”

Lessons for COP30

A just transition must also confront the realities of climate impacts. For informal women workers, it is not about distant promises of green jobs, but about surviving the effects of warming now – and building social protection systems that can secure their livelihoods.

SEWA’s experience shows that women-led action works. From grassroots insurance schemes to rooftop solar enterprises, women are already designing and scaling climate solutions that protect both their income and dignity.

To take these efforts further, finance for just transition policies must be deployed – and made accessible to women on the frontlines. The Belém Action Mechanism (BAM) for a Global Just Transition – proposed by civil society as a key deliverable for COP30 – could help bridge that gap by aligning governments, international institutions and community movements, creating clearer pathways for funding and technical support to reach grassroots initiatives directly.

But whatever happens in Belém this November, for millions of women like SEWA’s members, the transition has already begun.

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Climate change has a habit of exploiting weaknesses. Existing problems are made worse and new ones are created in its wake.

How the climate crisis unequally impacts women is well-documented – but no less shocking. According to the UN, women and girls are estimated to make up around 80% of the people displaced due to climate change. This often forces them into extreme poverty and a heightened threat of violence.

Researchers attribute this disparity to a range of factors. Women are typically among the majority of the world’s poor, with fewer decision-making powers and a greater reliance on their country’s natural resources for survival. The crisis brings deeply entrenched inequalities to the surface and makes them hard to ignore. 

This year’s International Women’s Day takes up the issue with the theme of “For All Women and Girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment”.

Many women in Peru, for example, are experiencing these inequalities firsthand as climate change forces them to adapt.

But they aren’t alone in the effort. Profonanpe, the Peruvian environmental fund, was established in 1992, and is at the forefront of conserving the country’s globally significant biodiversity.

As part of this work, the fund empowers women to take a central role in their future, by moving into new roles in their communities, and contributing vital local knowledge to adaptation responses.

Business leaders

Profonanpe is spearheading two climate projects, financed by the Adaptation Fund, and women’s rights are a main priority throughout. One of these initiatives, located in the Andes, is about to get underway, while another on the coast has recently reached completion.

Both present different challenges. In the mountains, women often participate in the same activities as men. The new project will increase adaptive capacity and reduce the vulnerability of forests, grasslands and wetlands using an inclusive approach that combines ecosystem monitoring and resilience-building.

A tale of two women: What climate vulnerability actually looks like

Along the coast it is uncommon to find women who work on fishing boats, but they play a crucial role in processing and marketing the day’s catch. Acknowledging this fact and finding alternative lines of work was a key consideration.

Peru’s significant fishing industry accounts for an estimated 10% of all fish captured around the world, but as fish stocks plummet, local communities need to diversify fast. Profonanpe’s approach was to help women create their own community associations, and run their own businesses.

New industries popped up using fish waste as a biofertiliser, aquaponic plants were created to cultivate fish stocks, and eco-tourism was promoted in marine protected areas.

José Zavala, a general coordinator on the project, explained: “The work of women within the productive chain of artisanal fishing was invisible for a long time. That is why it was decided, in a participatory way, to include activities exclusively for them and that would adapt to their way of life.”

Gloria Tarazona, president of the Women’s Association of Aquaponics in Huacho, said many women in Peru – particularly mothers of young children – can’t get paid work because they have to take care of their family. The project changes this dynamic by allowing them to join part-time with manageable schedules. “We are generating food and jobs for many people,” Tarazona said.

“The food is natural and organic, and little by little with climate change and pollution these products are becoming more necessary. The positive change that I’ve seen in all the women of the project is that they like what they have learned. I always tell them they have to continue forward because this is a project of the future,” Tarazona added.

Inspiring change

Claudia Godfrey, Profonanpe’s director of innovation and strategic management, told Climate Home how women’s stories from the project are a strong motivator. 

“Daughters have seen the change in their mothers, and felt inspired. They realise that their mothers can be leaders and entrepreneurs,” she said.

“Seeing younger generations inspired by their mothers reminds us how important it is to include women in climate adaptation.”

Strong gender policies, including setting high targets for female leadership on projects, have helped embed women’s rights in other organisations. These policies ensure fewer women are overlooked for leadership positions.  

The Adaptation Fund’s own social and gender policies are aimed at empowering women and marginalised groups. They do this by providing equitable access to resources and livelihoods, and inclusive decision-making.

Sustainable fishing offers lifeline to communities hit by climate crisis

“It’s moving to see how women have grown in confidence and recognition within their communities. Many of them have told us that they now have a voice in decision-making and how their lives have changed. Not just economically, but socially,” Godfrey added.

She added that climate change is increasing awareness of women’s roles and pushing them to have a stronger voice on the issue. The crisis has been a catalyst for changing how women within the environmental sector are viewed.

“In Peru, there has been great progress in recognising women’s role in environmental management. But there is still a lot to do,” Godfrey said.

Tracking progress

Mikko Ollikainen, head of the Adaptation Fund (AF), said the fund’s gender policies and monitoring approaches are continually being enhanced.

“For me, this resonates deeply with the fund’s ongoing efforts to promote gender equality and empower women and girls.”

“Women are a vulnerable group at risk of being overlooked in the design and implementation of adaptation projects. We need to actively ensure that women’s specific adaptation needs are duly considered. This in turn improves adaptation work on the ground,” he added.

“Lessons learned about considering the needs of women and girls will help us address the needs of other vulnerable groups.”

“We are continuously tracking progress on our gender work. We will continue to increase gender responsiveness so no one is left behind.”

Adam Wentworth is a freelance writer based in Brighton, UK.

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