Two Communities, One Toolkit: GenCGov’s First Climate and Gender Justice Grants Take the Toolkit Into Practice
Climate advocacy can be active, visible and well funded, and still exclude the people most affected by the crisis it claims to address. That was the provocation at the centre of GenCGov’s two-session Climate and Gender Justice Toolkit Adoption Workshop for CSOs, held in June 2026. It is also the premise now being tested in practice as two Nigerian civil society organisations take forward the first projects supported by the GenCGov Toolkit Adoption Grants.
From workshop to workplan
The workshop opened with a keynote from Dr. Pedi Obani, GenCGov’s Global Research Lead, built around a distinction that would shape everything that followed: environmental harm is visible, but gendered harm is often hidden.
A project can be climate-responsive without being gender-responsive. It can address a climate risk while overlooking who experiences that risk differently and what would need to change in the project’s design as a result.
Participating CSOs spent the first session reviewing their existing advocacy through a gender and intersectionality lens. The second session turned that analysis into practice, using the GenCGov Climate and Gender Justice Toolkit to design practical mini-sessions and toolkit adoption plans.
Two of those plans were selected for funding through a structured process combining internal technical review and public engagement. Final scores were weighted 70% towards technical assessment and 30% towards public voting. Each grantee received ₦1,000,000 to translate its toolkit adoption plan into a concrete community intervention.
From toolkit to workplan, and from workplan to community action, these grants are an opportunity to see what gender-inclusive climate governance looks like in practice.
Green Flow: Dignity in Every Stitch
Led by Mr. Ogene Ogbodo of Town Crier Initiative, Green Flow: Dignity in Every Stitch addresses menstrual poverty and plastic waste in Kubwa community, Bwari Area Council, FCT. These issues intersect in low-income households, with implications for health, dignity and school attendance.
Over three months, the project will train 100 young people, including 75 girls and young women aged 13 to 25 and 25 boys and young men aged 18 to 25, in reusable pad production. It will also distribute 100 reusable pad kits, deliberately involving boys and young men in a conversation often treated as a women’s issue.
The project draws on several components of the GenCGov Climate and Gender Justice Toolkit, including the CSO Advocacy Mapping and Community Engagement Tool, Gender Gap Analysis and Intersectionality Exercise introduced during the adoption workshop.
Beyond training and distribution, Green Flow is building towards longer-term sustainability through a youth-led Climate and Menstrual Health Action Group and the groundwork for a Green Flow Women Cooperative Society. The cooperative is intended to support continued production and distribution of reusable pads while creating opportunities for income generation beyond the grant period.
She Bears the Brunt
Led by Ms. Evelyn Williams of LightHope Succor Worldwide Initiative, She Bears the Brunt responds to a different but related gap. In flood- and pollution-affected communities across Rivers State, women can experience significant climate-related losses, including lost farmland, lost income and displacement. Yet their experiences are not always adequately captured in the data, compensation frameworks and governance processes intended to respond to climate loss and damage.
Over four intensive weeks, the project will train 45 women and young people as Climate Champions, equipping them to document household-level climate losses and contribute to building a Women-Led Socio-Economic Climate Loss and Damage Registry. The project draws directly on the toolkit’s Climate Education Mini-Session Planning Tool, Safe and Inclusive Facilitation Checklist, and Inclusive Accountability and Tracking Tool, putting the workshop’s training into practice from the first week.
Accountability scorecards and community monitoring committees, with women playing a leading role, will support continued tracking after the grant period, giving communities a mechanism to monitor climate governance commitments beyond a single intervention.
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What connects them
The two projects address different issues, in different communities and over different timelines. But they share a common starting point: the people most affected by a climate issue should have the tools, knowledge and opportunity to help shape the response.
This is at the heart of toolkit adoption. The aim is not simply for CSOs to use a set of resources. It is for the principles of gender-inclusive climate governance to influence how organisations understand problems, engage communities and design interventions.
The next phase will see both projects move towards implementation. GenCGov will be following their progress and sharing what emerges, including the experiences, lessons and outcomes documented along the way.
