Sweden’s Feminist Foreign Policy – how it is applied in climate change and environmental protection actions

Speech held at Gender Equality Today for a Sustainable Tomorrow:
Symposium on Biodiversity and Climate Change from a Gender Perspective

Organized by UN Women China and Center for China and Globalization in connection to International Womens Day 2022.

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Ladies and gentlemen,
Thank you for the opportunity to join this interesting and highly relevant event and to celebrate the International Women’s Day together with all of you.

It has been inspiring to listen to previous speakers on actions taken to tackle these sustainable development challenges that gender inequality poses.

Because, it is clear that women’s and girls’ limited access to political, economic and material resources has a negative impact on their ability to adapt to climate change and that in turn increases their vulnerability. This applies particularly in relation to agriculture and food security where women often bear the main responsibility.

Women and girls are, however, also critical actors and agents for change in the work to counteract climate change. That’s why Sweden was the driving force behind the inclusion of a gender perspective in the Paris agreement and contributed to enabling women from all over the world to make their voices heard in connection with the negotiations. Within the major multilateral environmental and climate funds, Sweden has contributed to linking the climate and gender perspective.

Gender equality is a human right and ultimately a question of democracy, representation and social justice. That’s why the Swedish government, as the first country in the world, launched a feminist foreign policy. That was in 2014.

The Swedish feminist foreign policy has been, and continues to be, an important tool to integrate gender equality and related issues into essentially all our policy areas. Gender equality is not only a goal in itself but also essential in achieving the Government’s foreign policy objectives of peace, security and sustainable development.

Thus, Sweden has stepped up efforts to integrate the environmental and climate perspective with the gender perspective in Swedish development cooperation.

Many of our bilateral cooperation programmes within environment and climate have clear gender equality perspectives. It means, for instance, taking into account that women and men suffer different exposure to chemicals and pollutants, it means ensuring equal right to environmental related information for all. It means promoting women’s and girl’s full enjoyment of human rights in climate and environment action linked to oceans, biodiversity, food security, water, sanitation and hygiene.

It is essential to improve gender equality in climate adaptation measures and, very importantly, strengthening indigenous peoples’ position within environmental issues to better utilise their knowledge and observations that are valuable in the global fight against climate change and biodiversity loss.

Sweden will step up its efforts to prevent climate change and its effects on food security and the environment and to promote sustainable living conditions. In 2025 our climate aid will reach 1.7 billion USD. The guiding principle of all of Sweden’s development cooperation is that it’s socially, economically and environmentally sustainable, and gender equal.

Lastly, I would like to mention that in June this year, Sweden will, together with Kenya, host the high-level Stockholm+50 Conference to commemorate the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm. The aim of the Conference is to help redefine our relationship to nature through concrete actions. To ensure success, a rights-based approach that includes women’s and girls’ perspectives as an integral part of the work and implementation is essential. You are all very welcome to join in person or digitally.

Thank you for your attention!

More information on the Stockholm+50 conference can be found via this link.

All the photos from the event can be found here.