Who Gets Funded to Build Resilience? Women, Capital, and the Future of Cities

​The Conversation

​Across South Asia and Africa, women in informal settlements are already building heat resilience systems, climate-health surveillance networks, community finance models, and localized adaptation infrastructure. Yet only 3.5% of global climate finance reaches frontline communities - and a fraction of that reaches women-led institutions directly.

​The session centres a question that cuts to the heart of climate philanthropy:

​"What if the future of climate adaptation depends less on inventing new solutions - and more on financing the leadership, trust networks, and systems already being built by women in informal settlements?"

​MHT's 30-year track record - 4.46 million lives impacted, USD 59 million in public resources leveraged, 817 Community Action Groups across 41 cities- demonstrates that grassroots women's institutions are not peripheral actors. They are capable of unlocking city budgets, influencing public systems, and scaling policy adoption.

​The session advances the case for collective unrestricted financing: long-term, trust-based capital that treats women's institutions as vehicles of civic change, not project implementers. This is IKAI's model - and this event is designed to catalyse it.

​Contact:
Shruti Motiwal
International Relations Lead Consultant
Email: shruti@empowrmenttrust.org