Giving Women hosted its 11^th Conference on Women at the frontline of Climate Action and Innovation” on 3 October 2024, and the incredible richness of the discussions which included storytelling, knowledge sharing, highlighting of innovative and courageous solutions most often created by women facing the climate crisis in their daily lives.

The panellists and moderators, from over 25 countries, included a wide variety of stakeholders: frontline women, activists, entrepreneurs, experts and policy makers.  Their call to action was for greater collaboration, access to funding, knowledge sharing. They also highlighted the need to find ways to replicate the solutions and include the voices of frontline women in the strategic planning to adapt and mitigate the environmental crisis which our planet and its communities are living.

There were many inspiring insights which we have been reflecting on with Giving women members and partners. Here are some of our favourites take-aways:

• “The climate crisis is a communication crisis” Mary Robinson, Project Dandelion
• “Turn data into dialogue” Ronda Carnegie, Project Dandelion
• “Only 4.4% of climate finance is prioritising gender” Barbara Buchner, Climate Positive Initiative
• “The world’s wealthiest 1% have a higher carbon footprint than the world’s poorest 66%” Christoph Courth, Pictet
• “Stories are data with a soul” Mojgan Sami, California State Universtiy, Fullerton
• “Governments need to be held accountable” Nasha Cuello Cavelier, Sustainability without Borders
• “Accountability starts at home” Lawrence Haddad, GAIN
• “The gap between community action and the corridors of power need to be shrunk” Richard Pearshouse, Human Rights Watch
• “A bank account is not financial inclusion” Mary Ellen Iskenderian, Women’s World Banking
• “Bundling financial services is one solution” Mary Ellen Iskenderian, Women’s World Banking
• “Look for “benefit multipliers” in your investments” Kali Taylor, Sustainable Finance Geneva
• “Women are not little men” Shobhita Soor, Legendary Foods
• “Embrace the complexity” Deborah Vorhies, FairWild
• “We are accountable for the freedom we are given, use it wisely” Nasha Cuello Cuvelier

It is time to get connected and amplify our work

Now is the moment, where we must really walk our talk and manifest the enlightened leadership we saw modelled at our conference. It is time to show that we are truly more than the sum of our parts. Let’s build on the momentum and dynamism that was generated from the conference and move to the action phase of the “inform, reflect and act” model central to the Giving Women conference and mission at large.

We witnessed some extraordinary moments of connection during the conference. For example:

• Mems Ramaila from BeeAfrica inspired Rose Waithaka from Kenya to start beekeeping on her farm.
• Mojgan Sami connected Elisa Dot Bach of DONA Coffee (the coffee we all enjoyed on the day) with a cooperative of women owned organic coffee growers in Costa Rica.
• Shobhita Soor, of Legendary Foods, connected with Lawrence Haddad of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition.
• Yesterday, I received a message from one of our online participants about a swim programme in South Korea to revive the tradition women sea divers, who dive to harvest for seafood. We will connect the programme run by Aminath Zuna and Flossy Barraud, who run a swim programme for girls and women in the Maldives.