WOMEN ARE ALREADY BUILDING THE SOLUTIONS TO THE CLIMATE CRISIS ACROSS HEALTH SYSTEMS.
We're here to make that visible.
PROJECT DANDELION'S CLIMATE, HEALTH, & GENDER COMPACT
exists to make women-led climate and health solutions visible, valued, and investable—accelerating action on extreme heat, access to care, maternal and newborn health, and community resilience.
THE WORLD'S MOST VITAL LEADERSHIP ON CLIMATE & HEALTH IS ALREADY HERE.
Across the world, women are responding to climate impacts long before formal systems arrive. They protect communities during extreme heat events. They care for mothers and newborns during and outside of climate shocks. Women’s adaptive labor, when recognized rather than extracted, is the most scalable climate resilience tool we have.
Over the last year, Project Dandelion, in partnership with Kinaura Partners, engaged with women leaders, health practitioners, policymakers, philanthropists, researchers, investors, and community organizations working at the intersection of climate and health seeking the answer to the underlying question: How do we work collaboratively to ensure that women at the forefront of solutions at the nexus of climate, health, and gender are visible, valued and funded?
Again and again, the same insight emerged: the solutions already exist. They remain disconnected, underfunded, and largely invisible. The Climate, Health, & Gender Compact seeks to change that.
INDIA
With SEWA, exploring women-led resilience, health systems, livelihoods, insurance, and heat adaptation.
KENYA
Exploring food systems, health resilience, and climate leadership through community-led innovation.
OCEANIA
Listening to leaders advancing health action plans at the intersection of climate.
How Change Happens:
THE FOUR POSITIVE DYNAMICS
Progress toward the Compact’s goals moves through four deliberate pathways. These approaches drive collective action to reach essential tipping points. Once in place, their dynamics reinforce one another faster than risks can accumulate.
SHIFTS
THE BIG REFRAME
Stop positioning women as beneficiaries of resilience. Position them as the architects of resilience and build the financial systems that recognize, reward, and scale their contributions. Women are not simply experiencing the climate crisis. They are already holding communities together through it. The challenge is not finding solutions. The challenge is making the world's most effective leaders on climate and health visible, valued, and investable.
SYSTEMATICALLY RECOGNIZE WOMEN AS CRITICAL CLIMATE INFRASTRUCTURE
As climate shocks intensify, women are already advancing some of the most effective and scalable solutions at the frontline. But women continue to be seen as beneficiaries rather than the system stabilizers they are. Community health workers, farmers, caregivers, entrepreneurs, midwives, water managers, and community leaders are already supporting communities through extreme heat events, food insecurity, disease outbreaks, migration, and disasters. The Compact aims to position women as the architects of resilience and build the financial systems that recognize, reward, and scale their contributions.
EMBRACE ECONOMIC METRICS THAT REFLECT THE VALUE OF WOMEN'S WORK ON HEALTH & CLIMATE
Climate risk is no longer a project-level issue. It is a systemic failure across health, gender, capital, and policy. The Compact brings in insurers, impact investors, and risk actors — because moving capital requires speaking the language of risk, not just equity. Exploratory metrics include quantifying the:
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Value of women's unpaid climate adaptation labor
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Economic value protected by women health workers
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Productivity preserved through adaptation investments
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Insurance losses avoided through women-led climate and health interventions
ADVANCE BEYOND VISIBILITY
AND INTO CAPITAL FLOWS
The Compact will be a platform that champions and accelerates investment into proven solutions – across geographies and contexts – at the intersection of climate, health, and gender, such as:
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Women-led heat action plans
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Community health worker networks
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Women's agricultural cooperatives
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Parametric insurance products
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Community cooling centers
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Maternal health innovations, such as midwifery programs
FOCUS ON THE HEAT-HEALTH NEXUS
Extreme heat is a quickly evolving crisis for communities, yet often lacks a coordinated policy response. Extreme heat affects maternal health, food security, labor productivity, insurance losses, health care system capacity, and economic activity. By focusing on extreme heat, the Compact aims to create urgency– and coordinate action– for businesses, cities, health systems, insurers, and investors while naturally centering women’s leadership.
WHERE WE ARE FOCUSING
THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS TO THIS WORK
Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA)
Women's Health & Equal Rights (WHER) Initiative
Vital Strategies
Reach Digital Health
C40 Cities
HERA (formerly Climate Resilience for All)
Wellcome Trust
Kite Insights
Gates Foundation
Kinaura Partners
Africa Alliance for Biodiveristy International & CIAT (CGIAR)
The Green Belt Movement
Skoll Foundation
Africa Climate Foundation
African Adaptation Initiative
International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)
Seed Global Health
The Case for Her
Acumen
The Grassroots Business Fund
Aga Khan University School of Nursing & Midwifery
Step Up Advisors
Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA) Foundation
WEDO
Maliasili
Human Rights Watch
BRAC Climate Hub
The Valerian Fund
United Nations Foundation
Direct Relief
Global Climate & Health Alliance
Quadrature Climate Foundation
Last Mile Health
Caring Africa
Youth Coalition for Sexual & Reproductive Rights
Community Health Impact Coalition (CHIC)
International Confederation of Midwives
ODI Global
Vibrant Data Labs
AGRA
Co-Impact
International Rice Research Institute (IRRI)
Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR)
Sall Family Foundation