The role of women in tackling climate change is central, crucial, and indispensable. At the same time women continue to bear a disproportionate burden from the adverse impacts of climate change. Despite some progress in recent years, women are often kept on the side lines of climate negotiations and the design and delivery of climate finance and investing. This is despite the vital and frontline role that they play in climate mitigation and adaptation.

The ASEAN Low Carbon Energy Programme (LCEP) promotes inclusive economic growth in the region by aiding increased green finance flows for low carbon energy and improving energy efficiency. It does this through the provision of policy support, capacity building, and technical assistance to facilitate green finance flows and improve the regulatory, policy and practical conditions for energy efficiency measures in ASEAN. A central ambition of the LCEP is to advance gender equality and social inclusion through conscientious and intentional design of green finance interventions. In doing so, the programme aims to build a compelling business case for further work in this area that is strategic and that builds upon evidence of what types of interventions are effective for enhancing equality under different financing and investment contexts, regardless of thematic focus. Gender and Inclusion is a cross-cutting theme throughout the programme and is mainstreamed across all relevant interventions. By involving women and disadvantaged groups in green financing, funds and corporations can build gender analysis into renewable energy projects and low-carbon technologies.

Over its three years of implementation, the ASEAN LCEP has been a pioneer in challenging the existing approaches to gender integration in climate finance, for the betterment of both people and planet.

LCEP supported flagship gender publications have served as thought leaders and include:

• Gender & Climate Investment: A Strategy for Unlocking a Sustainable Future. Drafted by GenderSmart and contributing towards a Gender & Climate Investing Toolkit published recently and used by investors and corporates globally.
• Integrating Gender Considerations into Sustainable Bonds: A How-to-Guide. Drafted in collaboration with the International Institute for Sustainable Development and GenderSmart and a key input into the Sustainable Bond Issuance Guide published by the Thai Securities and Exchanges Commission in 2021. It is the first bond issuance guide in the ASEAN region to intentionally focus on “why” and “how” to integrate climate and gender equality impacts in sustainable bonds regardless of their thematic focus.
• Integrating a Gender Lens in Voluntary Carbon Markets. Drafted in collaboration with GenderTech and Social Development Direct. Focused on intentionally integrating a gender lens into the voluntary carbon markets, this is the third in the ASEAN LCEP series of publications challenging the status quo with regard to gender integration in green finance flows and is intended to integrate gender equality in high quality carbon credits, to deliver better results for women and the environment.