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HomeOur Priorities...Cross-Cutting Issues

# Cross-Cutting Issues

## 								Initiatives							

        - **Gender Equality and Climate Change** 
        - **The Innovation Station**
        - **Girls and Young Women**
        - **Multilateral Affairs**

## Gender Equality and Climate Change

As recognized in the U.S. National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality, the climate crisis and gender equity and equality are inextricably linked. As frequent collectors and managers of natural resources, women and girls experience disproportionate burdens when food, water, firewood, and other natural resources become scarce. Climate-induced or climate-exacerbated conflict, migration, and displacement also impact women and girls differently than men and boys, including by increasing their risk for gender-based violence. 

Despite these challenges, women and girls are leaders and agents of change in combatting the climate crisis and environmental degradation. Due to their unique relationships with their families, communities, and environments, women and girls are often able to devise and deploy locally acceptable—and therefore more effective—solutions to climate and environmental challenges.  

In 2023, S/GWI published the first-ever U.S. Strategy to Respond to the Effects of Climate Change on Women, which outlines how policy, diplomacy, outreach, and programming can be used to advance the U.S. Government’s two-pronged approach to action on the nexus of gender equality and climate change: (1) addressing the disproportionate impacts of the climate crisis on women and girls, and (2) empowering women and girls as leaders in combatting the climate crisis. S/GWI amplifies woman and girl climate innovators through our *Innovation Station*initiative and helps to coordinate a gender focus in large multilateral moments such as COP, among other efforts.  

## The Innovation Station

Recognizing the positive impact women and girls continue to have on solving climate-related community challenges, S/GWI launched the *Innovation Station* initiative in July 2021 to amplify their efforts. By providing a platform to share their work with a global audience, the *Innovation Station* expands women’s and girls’ impacts by helping them build relationships with new communities, both domestically and internationally.  

The *Innovation Station* initiative includes a growing network of women and girls representing technological, programmatic, entrepreneurial, and initiative-based solutions to community challenges. By the spring 2024, the initiative has helped build more than 1,000 new relationships for network members (including many through U.S. Embassies) and has engaged audiences in 161 countries and 49 U.S. states and territories. To request information regarding upcoming *Innovation Station*virtual events or to join our mailing list, contact us at **stategwi@state.gov**. Subscribe to *S/GWI’s Innovation Station*podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.  

**Learn more**
        - **United States Strategy to Respond to the Effects of Climate Change on Women 2023** 
        - **COP 28 Gender Public Statements** 
        - The Innovation Station Podcast 

## Girls and Young Women

Due to the intersections of their age and gender, girls and young women face unique and disproportionate challenges including gender-based violence; unequal access to quality, inclusive, and safe education; and harmful social and cultural norms which impact their ability to participate equally and meaningfully in society. In 2016, the State Department— together with USAID, the Peace Corps, and the Millennium Challenge Corporation—launched the first-ever strategy to tackle barriers that keep girls from achieving their full potential.  S/GWI coordinates the State Department’s implementation of this strategy and is committed to furthering these policy and programmatic commitments to girls across thematic priorities of women’s economic security, women, peace and security, and gender-based violence prevention and response. , In 2023, S/GWI published the U.S. Strategy on Girls’ Civic and Political Participation which articulates U.S. global priorities related to the engagement of adolescent girls in civic and political processes.  

Download: 
        - U.S. Strategy on Global Girls’ Civic and Political Participation 2023 

## Multilateral Affairs

Through our participation in multilateral fora, the United States works with partners and allies to accelerate the pace of change and address global gender gaps, including through the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG Goal 5 on Gender Equality. Together with the U.S. Mission to the UN and the International Organizations Bureau, S/GWI elevates gender equality in multilateral fora such as the UN General Assembly, the UN Commission on the Status of Women, UN Human Rights Council, G7, G20, and APEC, among others.  

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