International Women’s Day

International Women’s Day, celebrated each year on 8 March, is a time to reflect on progress made on gender equality, to call for change and to celebrate women’s contribution to numerous challenges around the globe.

The theme for 2025 is “For ALL women and girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment“. This year’s theme calls for action that can unlock equal rights, power and opportunities for all and a feminist future where no one is left behind. Central to this vision is empowering the next generation—youth, particularly young women and adolescent girls—as catalysts for lasting change.

Besides, the year 2025 is a pivotal moment as it marks the 30^th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. This document is the most progressive and widely endorsed blueprint for women’s and girls’ rights worldwide that transformed the women’s rights agenda in terms of legal protection, access to services, youth engagement, and change in social norms, stereotypes and ideas stuck in the past.

Climate Justice has been listed among the six actions that can make a real difference, while placing the leadership of young women and adolescent girls in the centre of all efforts. As the climate crisis and biodiversity loss accelerate, women and girls—especially in rural and indigenous communities— bear the brunt of its devastating effects. They are also at the forefront of solutions.  Governments everywhere should prioritize women’s and girls’ rights and leadership in climate action by increasing investment in and their access to green jobs, like care, sustainable agriculture and renewable energy.

Geneva Celebrations Surrounding IWD 2025

Previous editions of International Women’s Day focused on:

International Cooperation on Gender and the Environment

While UN Women is the organization in the UN system dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women, many other actors in International Geneva and beyond are actively working at the gender-and-environment nexus.

Mainstreaming gender – making women’s as well as men’s concerns and experiences an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the policies and programmes in all political, economic and societal spheres so that women and men benefit equally and inequality is not perpetuated (UN Economic and Social Council, 1997) – is essential to achieve the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development and its goal SDG 5 on Gender Equality.

Recognizing the importance of the gender dimensions of their work, multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) have taken steps to mainstream gender into their practice. These include:

More information on these international efforts is provided in this section.

Women in Leadership

Women’s participation in decision-making is essential in environmental governance. The fourth UN Environment Assembly (UNEA-4) recognized the importance of  promoting gender equality and the human rights and empowerment of women and girls in environmental governance (EA.4/Res.17). The resources below provide relevant information on International Women’s Day and the role of women in environmental action.

Environmental decision making – decisions we make for people and planet – need to be inclusive and involve all voices, including equal voices from women. The triple planetary crisis – of climate, nature and biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste – places a triple burden on women. According to UN Women, climate-related extreme events can lead to increased violence against women and girls. And we know that biodiversity loss places profound pressures on women and girls as land managers and resource users. And as food producers, women are frequently at greater risk through endocrine-disrupting chemicals in pesticides, or persistent organic pollutants (POPs).

Inger Andersen, Executive Director, UN Environment Programme, on International Women’s Day 2021

International Gender Champions Geneva

The International Gender Champions (IGC) is a leadership network that brings together female & male decision-makers determined to break down gender barriers and make gender equality a working reality in their spheres of influence. The initiative was co-founded by former UN Geneva Director-General Michael Møller, former US Ambassador to the UN in Geneva Pamela Hamamoto and Women@TheTable CEO/Founder Caitlin Kraft-Buchman in 2015.

The network numbers over 250 active Champions and 160 Alumni who are the heads of International Organizations, Permanent Missions, and Civil Society Organizations. Find news, events and champions of the Geneva Hub in the links below.

The Gender and Environment Nexus

While men and women must work hand in hand to confront the environmental challenges of our time, considerations of gender and environment are crucial to our ability to achieve a just and sustainable future. Gender inequalities, such as weak rights to own land and reduced access to energy, water and sanitation facilities for women, have a negative impact on human health, the environment and sustainable development. Therefore, mainstreaming gender into the global environmental agenda is essential to strive for a healthier planet for all.

The Global Gender and Environment Outlook (GGEO), released by the UN Environment Programme in 2016, combines gender and environment perspective into a comprehensive assessment, and provides an overview of the links gender and the environment to inform policy decisions aimed at increasing gender equality.

Environmental change (…) has specific differentiated impacts on women and girls or on men and boys. Using a gender-specific approach to examine these complex linkages (which may be referred to as the “gender-and-environment nexus”) is therefore an appropriate way to investigate the dynamic relationships between environmental change and gender equality, as well as between impacts on sustainability and the realization of women’s rights and empowerment.

Global Gender and Environment Outlook, UN Environment Programme, 2017

Resources on the relevance of adopting a gender lens on environmental issues include:

Triple Planetary Crisis

To slow and adapt to climate change, protect and restore nature and biodiversity, reverse land degradation and desertification, and end pollution and waste, the world has adopted global deals that set agreed goals and targets: the Paris Agreement, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the Global Framework on Chemicals. These important agreements include references to gender, including women empowerment, gender-responsive approaches, gender equality and participation of women and girls in decision-making.

The triple planetary environmental crisis affects indeed everyone, everywhere, but not equally. It weighs heavily on women and girls, imposing on them disproportionate impacts. Furthermore, harmful gender norms, stereotypes, biases and discrimination exclude women and girls from participating in environmental decision-making and enjoying a fair share of nature’s benefits.

Climate Change

Climate change impacts are gender-differentiated, as the social conditions of men and women in different places influence their resilience to increase in extreme weather and climate events. Gender-aware policies, especially in the context of climate adaptation, are thus important to address the specific needs of men and women. Although women offer valuable insights and solutions into better managing the climate and its risks, their contribution is often overlooked in humanitarian and climate action. Building a sustainable future entails harnessing the knowledge, skills, and leadership of women in climate action.

Gender and other social inequities (e.g., racial, ethnic, age, income, geographic location) compound vulnerability to climate change impacts. […] Addressing inequities in access to resources, assets, and services as well as participation in decision-making and leadership is essential to achieving gender and climate justice.

IPCC, Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability (AR6, WG3), Chapter 18

Bodies such as the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) have mainstreamed gender issues since its inception; and the UNFCCC Paris Agreement recognizes the intersection of climate change and gender equality, empowerment of women and realization of their rights.

Chemicals and Waste

Women and men are impacted differently by chemicals and through different routes. They have different experiences of dealing with sources of exposure, and different priorities, responsibilities and needs relating to the reduction of toxic chemicals and wastes. In many places, gender also impact levels of access to participation, decision-making, information, education or justice. Women and men can also play different roles in making decisions about pollution prevention, waste management, identification of sources of chemical exposure, and building a safer environment for communities. Therefore, understanding the relationship between gender and sound chemical management is important to establish effective projects and policies. This section provides additional references on the differentiated impact of chemicals and waste, as well as efforts to mainstream gender in chemicals and waste management.

Ecosystem Management

Gender indequality creates barriers to effective sustainable development and livelihoods by limiting or restricting women’s access to resources and decision-making opportunities. Thus, addressing gender gaps in ecosystems management is essential to achieve conservation goals, community wellbeing and human rights.

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) recognizes the vital role women play in the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.

Water and Sanitation

Women and men everywhere are affected by water availability, access and quality, but in different ways due to prevailing gender roles and norms. In many places, women are in charge of collecting water, and are thus particularly impacted by environmental change and disasters. The health impacts are linked with water and sanitation. This section provides resources on the interlinkages of gender and environment in that area.

Energy

While the need for energy transitions is increasingly recognized due to the necessity of mitigating climate change, using a justice and gender lens to address this question is essential to create transitions for all. Both in developed and developing countries, energy poverty remains a gendered problem. Decision-making in the formal energy sectors is heavily gender-skewed, and policies are mostly gender unaware. Resources on this issues are found in this section.

Food Security

Gender inequality is highly present in the current food system, in terms of access to and control over resources such as land and production inputs, access to information and technology, and food security. Closing the gender gap in these areas would increase productivity and generate a range of other social and economic benefits. Health issues related to poor diet or pesticide use are also more prevalent with women. This section provides information on the differentiated impacts of the food system on men and women, as well as the opportunities for improving food production systems through gender equality.

Human Rights, the Environment and Gender Equality

All people are born equal and free, as guaranteed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and all people, regardless of gender, are endowed by virtue of their humanity with human rights and human dignity. However, climate change, biodiversity and habitat loss, and pollution threaten to destroy lives, economies, and entire cultures and societies.

Though these environmental emergencies threaten everyone’s enjoyment of human rights, they often have differential effects on the basis of gender. Discrimination and sociocultural norms, stereotypes and biases impair women’s and girls’ ability to enjoy fully all their human rights – including the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. It is incumbent upon us to work on two processes in the face of the triple planetary crisis: tackling systemic discrimination and tackling the climate emergency, biodiversity loss and pervasive pollution. Gender-transformative action is necessary to change the norms and systems that perpetuate inequality and discrimination. Women and girls need to be included in environmental decision-making towards ensuring a fair share of the benefits of nature and while being active agents in the fight against the triple planetary crisis.

Learning Resources

This section provides additional resources to enhance your knowledge on the gender-and-environment nexus.

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