Young Women and Girls: Asia and the Pacific’s Changemakers for Nature-Based Solutions

People and economies throughout the world depend heavily on a healthy environment and nature. In Asia and the Pacific, more than half of the region’s economy, about $18 trillion is directly dependent on nature, in particular agriculture and food systems, fishery and aquaculture, and forestry sectors. The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific notes that Asia has undergone the most rapid and serious decline in biodiversity and ecosystem services. In 2020, the United Nations system used the term triple planetary crisis to inform the three key interlinked environmental, social, economic and health challenges that humanity currently faces: climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss.

Young women and girls are developing and implementing innovative solutions to address environment degradation and shifts in climate, including nature-based solutions that can be financed and scaled to help address the triple planetary crisis. Nature-based solutions are defined by the United Nations Environment Programme as actions to protect, conserve, restore, sustainably use and manage natural or modified terrestrial, freshwater, coastal and marine ecosystems, which address social, economic and environmental challenges effectively and adaptively, while simultaneously providing human well-being, ecosystem services, resilience and biodiversity benefits.

A recent report from Plan International highlights research showing that women, particularly young women, are often more likely than men to adopt innovative climate adaptation practices, alongside being core actors in climate adaptation within households and communities. There is also an emerging body of research demonstrating that including women in environmental management leads to better environmental outcomes. However, young women and girls face significant barriers to leading or scaling up nature-based solutions, owing to systemic structural barriers such as unequal access to land, credit, and knowledge, highlighting the need for a gender-transformative approach to nature-based solutions that addresses unequal gendered power relations and structural inequalities through the implementation of nature-based solutions financing.

The meaningful involvement and leadership of young women and girls ensures more inclusive, equitable solutions, strengthens community resilience, and helps bridge socio-economic disparities. Empowering young women and girls to engage in nature-based solution-related projects enhances sustainability of interventions, strengthens application of local knowledge, and promotes climate-resilient livelihoods, which is critical in combating the rising challenges of environmental degradation posed by the triple planetary crisis.

The Asian Development Bank's International Day of the Girl Child Celebration 2024 – Girls’ Takeover: Girls' and Young Women's Leadership in Nature-Based Solutions for Climate Action showcased the leadership of three young women from India, Papua New Guinea, and the Philippines in developing innovative nature-based solutions activities:

1. Prachi Shevgoankar's Cool the Globe movement and app empowers individuals worldwide to reduce their carbon footprint through everyday actions. Cool The Globe has a “Contribute” feature that encourages users to engage in emission-offsetting activities such as tree planting and carbon offsetting through International-Renewable Energy Certificate projects. This aspect of their app allows users to contribute to nature-based solutions while reducing their carbon footprint, highlighting the use of innovative tools to drive nature-based solutions for climate action.
2. Dikatauna Kwa established the Eda Davara Marine Sanctuary in Papua New Guinea. The Sanctuary initiative focuses on conservation of mangrove forests, seagrass meadows, and coral reef ecosystems and addresses environmental changes that have affected communities within and around them. Using the research findings, educational and ecotourism programs are developed to promote community awareness and local economic activities.
3. Sabrina Escalona integrates environmental engineering and design to restore water systems and promote rainwater harvesting. Her start-up Rainfold is promoting use of foldable rainwater harvesting tanks that transforms rainwater into safe, drinkable water. She also manages Water Project PH, a digital platform dedicated to educating Filipinos on the importance of nature-based solutions and sustainable water practices in response to the growing national water crisis.

#GirlsTakeover Panelists Prachi Shevgoankar (India), creator of the citizen-led application for climate action Cool the Globe; Dikatauna Kea (Papua New Guinea), biologist and founder of the Eda Davara Marine Sanctuary; and Sabrina Escalona (Philippines), co-founder of Rainfold, engaged in a series of exploratory meetings with the ADB Philippine Country Office, Climate Change Resilience and Environment Cluster Environment and Climate Change Teams, Gender Equality Division, and the NGO and Civil Society Center. The event was held on 17 October 2024 at the ADB Headquarters in Manila. Photo credit: ADB.

ADB’s International Day of the Girl Celebration 2024 not only showcased nature-based solutions innovations by young women leaders but also highlighted the use of digital tools to expand their reach and impact. It also featured a powerful call to action by girl advocate Rinoa dela Cruz from Manila, Philippines. As part of Plan International’s Girls’ Takeover campaign, where young women and girls challenge harmful social norms that limit their participation in political, economic and civic life by stepping into spaces they are not usually present, she symbolically “took over” the role of ADB Director for Fragility and Engagement Benjamin Graham for the day and delivered a powerful intervention calling for the ADB to not only listen to young women and girls but also to co-design projects that embeds girls' leadership and community-based nature-based solutions into sectoral operational plans, especially in fragile and conflict affected situations and small island developing states.

Girl advocate Rinoa dela Cruz from the Philippines symbolically “took over” the role of ADB Director for Fragility and Engagement Benjamin Graham during ADB’s International Day of the Girl Celebration 2024. Photo credit: ADB.

ADB’s Environment Action Plan 2024-2030: Toward a Nature-Positive Asia and the Pacific acknowledges the disproportionate impact of environmental degradation on women, girls and other vulnerable groups, including youth and indigenous peoples, and calls for integrated solutions to address the interconnected challenges of biodiversity loss, pollution and climate change. It specifically calls for ADB to empower women and youth, and to enhance our engagement with these groups to drive inclusive approaches.

Similarly, the Strategy 2030 Midterm Review: An Evolution Approach for the Asian Development Bank identified resilience and empowerment as one of the five strategic areas of focus where work must be accelerated to address growing development challenges, in addition to highlighting the imperative for ADB to engage more deeply and widely with diverse stakeholders. The commitment to engage meaningfully with young people to catalyze development outcomes is further establishing in the ADB Civil Society Approach: An Operational Approach to Enhanced Engagement.

As part of driving progress toward the SDGs, ADB can continue to promote the voices of girls and young women through innovative knowledge events such as the Asia Pacific Youth Symposium. Such knowledge events can, in turn, be used to showcase innovative solutions to project officers and developing member countries for replication and scaling in ADB financing. The adoption of gender-transformative approaches to nature-based solutions provides an opportunity for financing partners to promote gender equality in Asia and the Pacific, while simultaneously addressing the triple planetary crisis.

A. Gaspers, T. L. Oftebro, and E. Cowan. 2022. Including the Oft-Forgotten: The Necessity of Including Women and Indigenous Peoples in Nature-Based Solution Research. Frontiers in Climate.

Asia Investor Group on Climate Change and Price Waterhouse Cooper. 2024. New Research: Over Half of Asia Pacific’s Economy Directly Dependent on Nature.

Plan International. 2025. Beyond Inclusion: Empowering Women and Girls for Smarter, Fairer Nature-based Solutions for Climate Action. August.

Plan International Asia Pacific. 2024. #GirlsTakeover2024. YouTube video. 14 December.