Green Climate Fund Executive Director Howard Bamsey spoke about GCF's efforts to mainstream gender throughout its activities in a side-event held on the eve of the One Planet Summit in Paris.

The event, hosted by the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, considered the gender dimension to climate finance, examining challenges of financing women-centred climate actions, as well as identifying barriers to women accessing climate finance.

GCF outlined its experience of developing a comprehensive gender policy and action plan, as well as a training manual on gender and climate change it has developed in partnership with UN Women.

Executive Director Bamsey also shared examples from GCF's project portfolio with particular gender benefits. These include an energy efficiency project with XacBank that focuses particularly upon providing favourable financial terms to women-led Mongolian MSMEs, an African project with Acumen that trains women as solar technicians, and a project with the Agency for Agricultural Development of Morocco to support the planting of argan orchards that strengthens women-led cooperatives.