November 25 is the international day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

So what have we achieved? Has the incidence of violence against women gone down, is the world today better than it was last year, yesterday?

Unfortunately for us, even if we had been making some progress in some ways, COVID and its aftermath has drawn us back. As UNWOMEN states: “One in three women worldwide experience physical or sexual violence mostly by an intimate partner. Violence against women and girls is a human rights violation.  …Since the pandemic, violence against women, especially domestic violence has intensified.”

The Green Climate Fund is committed to addressing gender-based violence in its different forms. 

Our Gender policy ensures that all our projects assess the levels of violence against women in countries and identify interventions to address them. 

Our Sexual Exploitation, Sexual Abuse, and Sexual Harassment policy (known as SEAH) commits us to a zero tolerance towards all forms of sexual wrongdoing. 

Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse violate human dignity and universally recognized international legal norms and standards and have always been unacceptable behavior. GCF has a mandatory course on SEAH training for all staff of the secretariat. 

GCF is committed to gender equality and will work towards ensuring it is contributing to the fight against violence against women. 

Yannick Glemarec
Executive Director, GCF