EmPower: Women for Climate-Resilient Societies Phase II Across Asia and the Pacific, environmental degradation, climate-induced hazards and changing annual weather patterns increasingly jeopardize development gains. With urgent measures needed to address these mounting concerns, most countries in the region have joined multiple international agreements aimed at galvanizing action on climate change and disaster risks while hastening the global energy transition. They have made commitments under the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Paris Agreement on climate change, the Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction, and most recently, Stockholm+50. Many of these commitments are reflected in national climate and other plans and policies.
International frameworks recognize that effectively combating, adapting and responding to climate change and disasters depends on transformational societal change. Issues of gender equality and broader inclusion must take centre stage. Women and other excluded and marginalized groups, including youth, ethnic minorities, migrants and Indigenous people, can be powerful actors in jumpstarting and accelerating change. But this requires collective, rapid efforts by governments, development partners, civil society groups and local communities. Together, they must reduce the discrimination and marginalization that feed vulnerability and ensure that all groups realize their rights and gain resilience to risk. 

Towards this end, the following proposal presents Phase II of the joint UN Women and UNEP project “EmPower – Women for Climate-Resilient Societies”. Phase I took place from 2018-2022 in Bangladesh, Cambodia and Viet Nam and at the regional level of Asia-Pacific, with funding from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA). Phase II is rooted in the evaluation of Phase I, which found it exceeded most predetermined targets and established a solid foundation to scale up reach and impact at the country and regional levels. The proposal also reflects a community assessment and dedicated stakeholder consultations to define capabilities and challenges in the region along with specific national contexts and needs. 

The proposal calls for implementing Phase II from January 2023 to December 2027, aiming at three outcomes: 
•Outcome 1: Asia-Pacific actors increase action on gender responsive climate change adaptation and mitigation
•Outcome 2: Women in all their diversity and other marginalized groups are represented as key environmental actors in climate and DRR decision-making 
•Outcome 3: Women and other marginalized groups in Asia-Pacific secure climate-resilient livelihoods 
The project will operate at the regional and subregional levels with the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP). Country-level work will continue in Bangladesh, Cambodia and Viet Nam. 

Phase II will apply a rich array of tools, methodologies, empirical data and knowledge developed in Phase I to broaden and strengthen impacts, with a focus on implementing existing plans and policy commitments to accelerate gender-responsive, human rights-based climate action. It seeks to expand scope for women and other marginalized groups to shape decisions and build resilience, including through new access to finance, technology and renewable energy as a driver of better livelihoods and scaled-up climate action. Phase II puts an important emphasis on shifting negative social and gender norms, including those that limit women’s access to opportunities from renewable energy. It will also advance awareness of preventing climate-related drivers of gender-based violence (GBV). 

Phase II will amplify national results through regional platforms and encourage regional cooperation to drive a just, green transition and a resilient recovery from crises, including COVID-19. It will leverage valuable Phase I partnerships to reach a wider range of beneficiaries, including individual women leaders and entrepreneurs, rural women and men in all their diversity, marginalized groups, local, national and regional civil society organizations (CSOs), subnational and national government representatives, regional intergovernmental organizations and financing institutions working on climate change, renewable energy and DRR. 

In designing the project, UNEP and UN Women drew on critical lessons learned, including around the closer integration of their work. Both entities will operate jointly across all project outcomes, outputs and activities while substantially contributing to the delivery of the national United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Frameworks (UNSDCF) in all three project countries. The project aligns with specific objectives in UN Women’s Strategic Plan 2022-2025 and UNEP’s Mid-Term-Strategy for 2022-2025.