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Pacific women want more than a seat at climate meetings: they want their knowledge, priorities and concerns to shape the decisions that affect their lives. Climate hazards can add to existing health and unpaid-work burdens, while regional climate plans increasingly refer to gender equality. But policy language and attendance do not, by themselves, prove that women have equal influence or that plans are being delivered.
Why women’s influence matters in climate decisions
Climate decisions determine how communities prepare for disasters, manage water and natural resources, rebuild infrastructure and direct adaptation funding. Women’s participation matters because women are not a single group with one experience, and the effects of climate change are not distributed evenly. Existing inequalities can shape who bears extra work, whose health is affected and whose knowledge is heard when responses are planned.
UN Women’s 2025 Pacific Gender Outlook reports that climate hazards and disasters can increase women’s unpaid care and domestic work. Water shortages, power cuts, disease, injury and stress can all add to that burden. The report also describes disproportionate mental-health effects for women in the surveyed settings and greater physical-health effects for women in some, but not all, countries.
What country surveys reported about unpaid work
The figures below come from country-level Gender and Environment Surveys conducted in different years. They record the share of people surveyed who reported increased work burdens for women or men; they are not universal estimates for all Pacific women or a standalone measure of climate causation.
#1 Best Overall
| Survey | Reported increased care-work burden | Reported increased domestic-work burden |
|---|---|---|
| Tonga, 2022 | 62% for women; 28% for men | 52% for women; 18% for men |
| Samoa, 2023 | 54% for women; 22% for men | not stated in the 2025 Pacific Gender Outlook |
| Kiribati, 2024 | 56% for women; 20% for men | not stated in the 2025 Pacific Gender Outlook |
The surveys were carried out in Tonga in 2022, Samoa in 2023 and Kiribati in 2024, and are reported in the 2025 Outlook. The findings point to a practical reason for women’s input: a response designed without understanding who fetches water, cares for family members or sustains household needs may miss important impacts and priorities.
Presence is not the same as influence
The Pacific Gender and Climate Change Toolkit draws an important distinction: meaningful participation requires women’s viewpoints to be considered and their skills, concerns and priorities to inform decisions. Simply recording how many women attended a meeting does not show whether their views changed a plan, budget or project.
- Presence: Are women invited and able to participate in the relevant decision space?
- Influence: Are their views reflected in priorities, designs, budgets and implementation?
- Representation: Which women and girls are included, and whose knowledge is missing? This can include Indigenous, young, rural, disabled and otherwise marginalized women.
- Accountability: Are there ways to track whether commitments are funded and carried out?
These questions apply at both national and community levels. A country may include gender equality in a climate plan while local adaptation decisions still fail to reflect women’s priorities—or local leadership may make a difference even while national policy is catching up.
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The 2025 Pacific Gender Outlook finds that gender received little attention in the first round of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), the climate plans countries submit under the Paris Agreement. In that first round, the Outlook identifies Papua New Guinea as the only country assigning high priority to gender issues. In the second round, Fiji and the Marshall Islands gave high priority to integrating gender across policies and systems.
Rank #3
For NDCs submitted by 1 October 2025, every plan included in the Outlook’s review referred to women, men, sex or gender and explicitly to gender equality. Most also had a stand-alone section on gender equality and social inclusion. This is evidence of increased policy attention—not proof that women have gained equal decision-making power, that commitments have been funded or that implementation has succeeded. The Outlook notes that only time will show whether the plans achieve gender-responsive climate adaptation and mitigation.
That distinction matters when judging progress. A reference to gender equality is a commitment in a document; evidence of delivery would also show resources, indicators, accountability and changes in decisions or outcomes. The Outlook highlights the value of gender data for environmental planning, including Tonga’s use of gender data and gender-environment surveys. Its evidence draws on surveys in three countries and does not represent every Pacific country or territory.
Community examples show how women can shape decisions
Individual examples illustrate possible routes to influence, but they are not representative survey results. A 2020 United Nations feature profiled Fijian women advocating for more inclusive climate action.
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Rakiraki market reconstruction in Fiji
After surviving Cyclone Winston, Varanisese Maisamoa formed the Rakiraki Market Vendors Association in 2017. Following leadership training, she represented the association in the design of the reconstructed market. The rebuilt market included cyclone-resilient infrastructure, rainwater harvesting, flood-resistant drainage and gender-responsive design. Maisamoa described the purpose as: “We want to empower our market vendors to be climate-resilient.”
Best Value
The example connects participation to a concrete planning process: market vendors had a representative in reconstruction design, and the resulting facility incorporated measures relevant to climate resilience and users’ needs. It does not establish that the same route is available to all women or that one project can demonstrate region-wide impact.
Youth advocacy and community knowledge
The same UN feature profiled AnnMary Raduva, then a year 11 student, who initiated six mangrove-planting activities and planted more than 18,000 seedlings from 2018, according to the 2020 account. She spoke about the dependence of Indigenous communities on ecological resources for subsistence and livelihoods. The feature also described climate justice activist Komal Narayan’s advocacy. These dated cases show women and girls acting as advocates and organizers, not a uniform account of Pacific women’s experiences.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What gender-responsive climate action should make visible
Gender-responsive climate action is not only a matter of adding women’s names to a committee or inserting gender language into a national plan. It requires decision-makers to understand how hazards and proposed responses affect different people, then to make participation meaningful and assess what changes as a result.
- Who bears additional care, domestic and livelihood work when climate hazards disrupt daily life?
- Whose expertise and priorities shape local projects as well as national plans?
- Do plans and budgets reflect those priorities, and are progress and accountability visible?
- Are data available for different groups of women and girls, rather than only broad averages?
Regional policy resources offer further context. UN Women’s 2021 overview, Time to act on gender, climate change and disaster risk reduction, covers evidence from the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Vanuatu and Samoa. A 2025 United Nations Climate Security Mechanism announcement describes guidance for integrating climate change into Women, Peace and Security action plans across Asia and the Pacific; that guidance has a broader geographic scope than the Pacific alone.
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