Project Summary

Despite the existence of female activists and networks in both Nepal and Myanmar little is known about how they respond to the intersectional impacts of climate shocks, poverty and conflict.

These crises are often compounded by gendered inequalities, which further deepen the vulnerabilities of women and girls the activists are trying to support. Our research aims to fill this gap and is urgent given the ever-deteriorating climate emergency in Myanmar and Nepal, both ranked in the top five most climate impacted countries globally.

Beginning in late 2024, our research has been gathering evidence on the intersections described and the current different forms of women-led activism in each country, the differing routes to activism for women activist leaders today and how differing layers of activism interlink. We are also generating online, accessible training resources to support activists at the local level.

We are applying a multiple methods female-centred approach to collecting evidence, gathering data from dozens of stakeholders in each country. We are also using novel, safe and ethical data collection techniques in Myanmar, where the current context limits our ability to gather data in the same ways we can in Nepal.

This project is already generating critical insights into the role played by female activists in Myanmar and Nepal in mitigating and challenging the gendered and intersectional impact of climate crises, conflict and gendered inequalities including violence against women and girls. These include: deepening poverty, food insecurity, social exclusion including lack of political representation in resource allocation decision making, intensification of vulnerabilities that expose women and girls to even more and more frequent forms of violence.

In both countries evidence is clearly emerging that the most vulnerable, often women and girls, are at the forefront of facing the intersectional impacts of climate shock, poverty and conflict. Women are both the first responders to the climate crisis and the most impacted, with increased violence when climate shock occurs being an intersecting issue in both contexts. Advocates in both contexts have entered activism as a result of often experiencing a big shock, and historic training and support by international partners, underlying the importance of on-going support to such efforts.

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Myanmar:

• Women are invisible in climate change discussions taking place at any level, with eco-feminism only a recently emerging area of advocacy.
• There is a burgeoning grassroots civil society network trying to respond to these multiple crises, often using innovative ways and means to carry out their work including navigating insecurities.
• The vacuum of governance in certain areas impacts on communication, logistics and huge difficulties in responding to crises.
• Types of crisis response (such as humanitarian activities) are becoming highly politicised, and seen as acts of defiance against the military junta, which impacts on activists ability to undertake their work.

In Nepal:

• While there were earlier gains in gender equality in Nepal, progress is slowing down and stagnating. Political interference, migration, food insecurity, and sidelining of other feminist agendas such as GBV, young women, women using drugs, sex workers, single mothers etc. are weakening the movement.
• Women’s issues used to be a big area of interest and support of the international community and government but is now very fragmented, with female set-aside political participation rates being manipulated and the women’s caucus dismissed during the second constituent assembly. Although there is a scope to form women groups in the current federal parliament in legislative procedure regulation, in practice so far, it is not formed formally which shows strong disinterest towards maintaining a caucus to drive collective issues the impact disproportionate on women. 
• Relief and recovery efforts usually focus on general aid but fail to address the specific needs of women, e.g. pregnancy, menstruation, and caregiving.
• There are efforts to include gender in disaster planning in Nepal. Yet in reality evidence suggests that tokenistic ‘women-washing’ is occurring – where voices may have been heard in planning, little evidence is found that actions emanate for what is advocated for by these voices.
• The municipal government is taking back the space that NGOs have held over the last 20 years during the political vacuum, meaning a redrawing of power and power dynamics  across stakeholders, which impacts on the ability of women led responses to climate crisis.
• Stronger alliances, consistent funding, leadership development, and real participation of women at all levels from grassroots to government through existing networks, WROs, etc is weak.

Project Team