Gender equality is one of the most powerful, yet under-utilised solutions to avert catastrophic climate change.

On this International Women's Day, we celebrate the achievements of women and renew our commitment to gender equality within climate action.

GCF is the first climate finance mechanism to mainstream gender perspectives in our programming from the outset of our operations. But gender equality must go beyond mainstreaming. Targeted action is also required to empower women as agents of change to drive the climate transformation we need.

For this International Women's Day, we are focusing on "Innovation and Technology for Gender Equality" the theme chosen by UN Women this year, a UN agency very close to my heart.

Innovation – so critical to achieving true gender equality - is at the heart of the Green Climate Fund’s work, and I would like to highlight a few of our initiatives to empower female innovators and entrepreneurs.

A first example is the Catalyst initiative, a climate incubator fund set up with GIZ, which will support the establishment and development of incubators and accelerators in Africa and Latin America.

There is a dearth of climate incubators in developing countries. There are estimated to be around 2,000 technology incubators and more than 150 accelerators worldwide. However, less than 70 are dedicated climate technology incubators and accelerators. And due to fiscal constraints, just 25 of these are in developing countries. This lack of support for innovation particularly impacts women entrepreneurs, who traditionally face even more barriers in accessing information and finance to refine business models, ground-truth and bring to market their new climate solutions. And ultimately it is all women and men who are affected by this gap in women-led innovation.

Another example of our proactive approach to support women innovators is the ARAF programme, which supports pioneering and early-growth agribusinesses that enhance the climate resilience of smallholder farmers.

This programme is proving particularly important for women entrepreneurs to finance the early growth phase of their business. Enhancing diversity in climate entrepreneurship and supporting women-owned businesses will in turn help provide women farmers in the Sahel have the same access to information, land, finance, and technologies. According to FAO, addressing these gender gaps in access has the potential to increase agricultural productivity by 20-25 per cent in the Sahel region and to reduce the number of malnourised people by 150 million.

But it is not just through our programming that we are acting on gender equality. At our GCF headquarters, we take great pride in our commitment to diversity and inclusion. We continue to make gender equality a central goal in our People Plan. As we move forward in our journey towards digital transformation, women are assuming leadership positions to deliver on our ambitious mandate. As of today, I am pleased to announce that women now make up 60 per cent of the Senior Management Team at the GCF Secretariat, which is a strong reflection of our commitment to ensuring gender equality and equal representation throughout the organization.

On this International Women's Day, GCF renews its commitment to gender equality. The challenge is immense but so are also the benefits. GCF is a partnership organization. Working together with our over 200 programming partners, we can make change happen.