Women’s Environment & Development Organization
WEDO staff members Mara Dolan and Alex Gordon march during the 2021 Global Day of Action for Climate Justice in Glasgow, Scotland. Photo: Annabelle Avril / WECF
A leader in organising women for international conferences and actions, the Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) has a clear vision: a just world that promotes and protects human rights, gender equality and the integrity of the environment.
Advancing feminist leadership and solutions, the organisation aims to increase the number of women and gender expansive leaders at all levels to implement global policy gains while holding governments accountable to their commitments on women's rights.
Disrupting patriarchal and male dominated power structures in the climate space, WEDO is committed to showcasing gender-just climate solutions by building a collective power of feminist leaders and movements and by implementing a feminist economic agenda.
A powerful reminder of what can be achieved through collective action, WEDO is part of the Women's and Gender Constituency, which brings together more than 30 organisations and serves as a hub for feminist organisations within the UN climate space. Having created a space for collective learning and capacity strengthening, WEDO has helped to bring feminist and environmental analyses and justice perspectives into global policy dialogues.
We spoke to Lindsay Bigda, the Senior Communications Manager at WEDO and the team, about the power of collective feminist movements in the climate space, the Feminist Green New Deal and the Feminist COVID-Response Collective. This Collective was set up in order for organisations to support one another and strategize towards a feminist recovery from COVID-19.
WEDO is a leader in organising women for international conferences and actions. Can you tell us about the fundamental importance of gender equality and women's human rights when it comes to combating climate change?
Evidence and experience show that, in many countries, women, girls, non-binary and gender expansive folks are among those most affected by climate and environmental crises. This is especially true for women in the global South, in small island states, for women of color, for low-income and grassroots women, for rural women, those who are migrants, and so many more facing intersecting marginalization.
However, even as they are disproportionately affected by climate change, they also have unique knowledge and solutions—as care workers, land and resource managers, feminist activists, and just as folks who experience patriarchal and systemic oppression first-hand. They are on the frontlines of offering feminist alternatives, adapting to changing environmental conditions and moving toward sustainability. And thus, they must be included in climate policy decision-making at all levels.
How can we further disrupt patriarchal and male dominated power structures in order to ensure an increase in the number of women and gender non-conforming people in leadership positions in the climate space?
Two important ways that WEDO approaches its work is by focusing on the root, systemic causes of injustice, and prioritizing collective organizing. By partnering with and bringing together diverse organizations and individuals, we can form collective demands and movements that gain greater traction across and beyond policy spaces. And we can use these coalition spaces to demonstrate the impacts of feminist leadership and highlight feminist visions and solutions. By acknowledging the proposals and analyses that feminist leaders bring to the table, we can start to close these gaps in representation, and increase collaboration toward addressing the climate crisis.
How can we empower young women, girls and gender non-conforming people to fight for their seat at the table when it comes to gender responsive climate policy?
Women, girls, non-binary, gender expansive folks, and so many more who experience gender oppression already hold tremendous power as leaders in social and environmental movements, as well as in the political and policy realms. WEDO doesn't use the language of “empowerment;” rather, we consider our work as creating more spaces for collective learning, capacity strengthening, and information-sharing around global policy spaces, which are often technocratic and difficult to access.
WEDO is part of, and a co-focal point for, the Women’s and Gender Constituency (WGC)—one of the official observer groups to the UNFCCC processes. The WGC brings together more than 30 organizations, and essentially serves as a hub for feminist organizing within the UN climate space, helping to ensure the meaningful inclusion of feminist climate analysis and perspectives. WEDO also provides capacity strengthening through its Women Delegates Fund Program, which funds the training and travel support for 10-20 grassroots activists to engage in the UN climate negotiations. Since it was begun in 2009, the program has supported 378 trips for 143 women—providing one pathway for women to enter difficult-to-access policy arenas and grow as climate policy experts.
How does WEDO ensure that women and other individuals who are disproportionately affected by the climate crisis are leading the conversation on combating the climate crisis.
Since its founding in the 1990s, WEDO has worked to bring feminist and environmental justice analyses and perspectives into global and national policy dialogues. When we looked at these global policy spaces, we saw that the views of people at the grassroots level weren’t being reflected in the room—or in policy documents. WEDO has aimed to fill these gaps in different ways, from providing technical analysis to bringing grassroots women activists together to form a collective for action. Our leadership program focuses on supporting women from Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in Africa and the Asia-Pacific region, which have had less representation of women on national delegations. Taken together, these efforts are changing who has a voice and access to decision-making spaces.
The Feminist Green New Deal intends to change the interlocking systems of capitalism, resource extraction, labour exploitation, the commodification of nature, settler colonialism and imperialism that have been so damaging to both people and planet.
What measures can we take to address and change the current economic, environmental and political systems?
It’s important that our collective efforts address the root causes of the climate crisis while driving toward greater coherence across policy sectors. This means divesting from extractive models, confronting unsustainable production patterns, and shifting toward regenerative and cooperative systems.
One critical intersection that the Feminist Green New Deal has been focusing on is that of climate action and care work—including the urgent need to recognize, value, reduce and redistribute unpaid domestic and care work. Our analysis of this intersection in the U.S. builds on the growing momentum around strengthening core infrastructure, and provides recommendations for the Biden-Harris Administration to deepen investments in the care economy as part of this effort. This includes explicitly recognizing the importance of care work in a jobs plan, and ensuring that care jobs are paid, high-quality, green jobs that contribute to climate resilience.
How does the Feminist Green New Deal support and protect frontline communities in the ongoing climate mitigation and adaptation efforts.
WEDO is only one of the member organizations of the Feminist Green New Deal formation in the U.S., within which there are many different strategies and tactics member organizations take. One of the priorities of the Feminist Green New Deal is to ensure solutions to the climate crisis that are community-owned and community-led, including uplifting and resourcing existing women- and community-led efforts.
WEDO developed the Feminist COVID-Responsive Collective in order for organisations to support one another and strategise towards a feminist recovery from COVID-19.
Can you tell us more about how COVID-19 further exacerbated existing inequalities for women, girls and gender non-conforming persons and communities globally?
The COVID-19 crisis has brought to light many of the existing, systemic inequalities—across areas such as healthcare, employment, childcare and environmental protection—that have been exacerbated by the pandemic. It has upended economies, changed mobility patterns, disrupted social networks, altered informal and formal workplaces and flows, and redefined the concept of essential work and who performs it.
In times of crisis, women and marginalized groups often become “shock absorbers”—for example, taking on increasing unpaid care work, becoming more vulnerable to the loss of jobs or livelihoods, and facing heightened risks of violence.
What are the key principles behind the Feminist COVID-19 Response Collective that are pushing for a just and resilient recovery from the ongoing global pandemic?
Firstly, we believe that any measure to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 should be centered around the well-being of all people in an intersectional manner, and this includes enabling participatory democracy where people with the least power can hold the powerful accountable. COVID-19 responses must also ensure the health and safety of all, including ensuring sexual and reproductive health and rights.
Secondly—rather than promoting a return to normal—COVID-19 responses must promote a comprehensive paradigm shift. This entails considering COVID-19 responses as a “downpayment” on a just and equitable transition away from fossil fuels and towards an equal and healthy planet. This also means that COVID-19 responses must be guided by cooperation, multilateralism and global justice, and in a way that promotes adequate and equitable financing.
Can you tell us a little more about how the Feminist Monitoring & Advocacy Toolkit is empowering people to mobilize and act.
As mentioned above, rather than viewing the tools we create as “empowering” others, we really view this effort as one that demonstrates that another world is possible and that responses to COVID-19 can pave the way towards more feminist policies, and ultimately a more feminist world. This toolkit provides a sort of “roadmap” for advocates that translates the Collective’s core principles into guidance and recommendations for policymaking and advocacy—toward influencing and changing our current systems.
What's next for WEDO?
Our newest strategic plan that guides our work through 2024 focuses on moving power, moving money, and moving minds. We’re excited to deepen our work in each of these areas: to continue finding power in collectives and collective organizing, to influence climate finance flows so they reach grassroots organizations and frontline communities, and to use uplift data and feminist solutions in all aspects of our work.
WEDO's Alex Gordon speaks at a press conference on feminist solutions to the climate crisis during the 2021 UN climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland. Photo credit: Annabelle Avril / WECF