As part of ASTRA Network’s campaign exploring the connections between climate, health, gender and human rights, we spoke with Chiara Cosentino of Countdown 2030 Europe and Sevara Khamidova of IPPF EN about what a truly rights-based climate response requires.
They explain why climate finance must reach feminist, youth-led and grassroots SRHR organisations, why reproductive health and rights need to be built into climate adaptation and resilience strategies, and why climate action must never come at the expense of bodily autonomy.
Because building resilient communities means funding the people and organisations already working closest to them.
Q: How is the climate crisis affecting access to sexual and reproductive healthcare and rights in Central Asia, particularly for women, young people, displaced people, rural communities and other marginalised groups?
A: The climate crisis is increasingly affecting access to sexual and reproductive health and rights across Central Asia by deepening existing inequalities and creating new barriers for those already most at risk. While its impacts are felt across society, women, young people, displaced people, rural communities and other marginalised groups are disproportionately affected.
The climate crisis increases our exposure to extreme weather events like flooding or droughts, but communities that rely on agriculture and pastoralism are particularly affected while also forced to rely on a weaker healthcare infrastructure and less income to navigate times of crisis. With livelihoods at risk, climate-related disruptions to transport, and difficulty accessing quality health care, pregnant women and adolescents are those whose safety is most precarious.
Our health is also clearly directly worsened by the climate crisis. In the case of Central Asia, UNFPA research links heat exposure, air pollution and environmental contamination to increased risks of maternal mortality, stillbirths, preterm births, low birth weight and infertility. Exposure to contaminants, heavy metals and endocrine-disrupting chemicals is raising concerns about reproductive health for everyone, including male infertility.
On top, reduced access to clean water also affects menstrual hygiene management, safe pregnancy and childbirth, and infection prevention, with women and girls disproportionately affected because they often bear primary responsibility for water and household care.
Young people’s safety, wellbeing and education are also threatened by climate-related environmental degradation. Girls, especially, face greater risks of early marriage, school dropout, limited access to relationships and sexuality education and youth-friendly care, as well as increased instances of gender-based violence during climate-related crises.
Finally, climate-related migration is already increasing, particularly from countries such as Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, and is expected to grow further. Displaced women and girls are often denied access to contraception care, maternal healthcare and protection from violence, while migrants working in insecure, low-paid sectors may have limited access to healthcare, including HIV vulnerability, and social protection.
But this is not a fight we cannot win. It’s a matter of political will and allocating financial resources where they will make a positive change in people’s lives.
We need to work towards changing systems that simply don’t work for people or even worse, they hurt us all, by making fundamental shifts in the distribution of resources, voice, and opportunity in order to address deeply entrenched inequalities that fuel threats to our planet and to our health and wellbeing. And we need to make sure that climate adaptation policies and funding integrate gender equality and SRHR not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because it makes our societies more resilient and enables everyone to fully engage in climate action.
Q: You’ve also made clear that responding to these inequalities requires political will and resources. Yet Countdown 2030 Europe’s research shows that European donors still rarely connect SRHR and climate action in their policies and funding. What needs to change to ensure climate adaptation finance actually reaches feminist, youth-led and grassroots SRHR organisations, especially in underfunded and politically challenging contexts?
A: Across the planet, our lives are interconnected. Because our health is connected to the health of the planet, when our climate is threatened, so is our collective health and well-being.
When services such as access to contraception, safe abortion care, and STI testing and treatment are available to everyone, we ensure that each and every one of us has the power to shape our lives and our communities. To make this a reality, we need climate adaptation financing that reaches the organisations closest to communities, including feminist, youth-led and grassroots SRHR organisations, particularly those working in underfunded and politically challenging contexts.
We can achieve this by ensuring that European donor governments better align policies and investments across SRHR and climate adaptation. This means embedding SRHR in climate strategies, recognising its role in empowering women and marginalised groups as agents of climate resilience, and including civil society, women’s rights, indigenous and youth-led organisations in policy dialogues and multilateral climate processes.
At the same time, donors should increase funding for integrated SRHR and climate adaptation approaches, expand support for civil society organisations – especially women-led, indigenous and youth grassroots groups – and promote gender-responsive climate financing while also mainstreaming SRHR and climate resilience across broader development and humanitarian initiatives. European donors should also work with partner countries on financing mechanisms that strengthen domestic resource mobilisation which integrate SRHR into climate policies, Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and adaptation plans, which clearly recognise women as agents of change.
To strengthen these efforts, we also need greater investment in community-based research and evidence generation on the links between SRHR and climate resilience, alongside gender analyses throughout climate planning processes to ensure interventions are inclusive and do no harm. We must value local and Indigenous knowledge systems and redesign how knowledge is produced, moving away from a model where the Global North remains the primary source of knowledge creation.
Finally, strengthening the capacity of European Ministries of Foreign Affairs, particularly staff working on climate action, can improve collaboration with partner countries to ensure that SRHR is systematically integrated into climate policies and programming, with local actors’ perspectives meaningfully reflected throughout.
By taking these steps, we can advance more equitable, intersectional climate adaptation efforts that reach those most affected, strengthen community resilience, and improve our collective health, gender equality and climate outcomes.
Q: You’ve argued that SRHR needs to be recognised as part of climate resilience and that funding should reach the organisations closest to affected communities. But bringing SRHR into climate policy can also carry risks — particularly when reproductive rights are framed through population or demographic goals. How can SRHR be integrated into climate policies and resilience planning without reinforcing pronatalist or population-control narratives?
A: Sexual and reproductive health and rights are a pre-condition to achieve gender equality and are thus crucial to adapt and build resilience to climate change gendered impacts. People who are healthy, empowered, and able to exercise their bodily autonomy, can become agents of change for collective action and protect both public health and their surrounding environment. Realising SRHR improves education outcomes and subsequently leads to economic empowerment and gender equality. Investing in SRHR is also instrumental for preparedness and risk management of climate-led disasters, as people are equipped and empowered to lead those efforts.
Unfortunately, the link between SRHR and climate action has often led the way towards instrumentalising the provision of contraception in high-fertility rate countries, as a means to reduce fertility and control population growth as a mitigation measure to decrease levels of greenhouse gas emissions. This overall narrative falls dangerously into the neo-Malthusian logic of using population control to reach other objectives, in this case instrumentalising women and girls’ bodies to tackle the climate crisis. It also distracts from the responsibility of high-income countries to address the structural drivers of the climate crisis – such as unsustainable patterns of production and consumption – placing the burden on those mostly impacted by it rather than on those who contributed to creating the problem. Climate solutions must be grounded in reproductive and climate justice.
Instrumentalising women and girls’ bodies is a human rights violation. Putting the burden on those who are not part of the problem to solve it is a failing (as well as unethical and unjust) strategy. Modern and voluntary access to contraceptive care, as well as to the whole spectrum of SRHR services, is a crucial, human rights-based, and cost-effective approach to climate change adaptation and resilience building. It empowers people to make their own informed choices, being able to contribute to the collective good, rather than with the aim of curbing population growth.
Meaningful integration of SRHR into climate policies and resilience planning requires recognizing that climate change directly affects people’s ability to access SRHR services, exercise bodily autonomy, and live safely and healthily. And that, on the other hand, SRHR can be a crucial solution to climate adaptation and resilience.
By looking at existing European donor programmes we’ve identified a few key ingredients for meaningful integration of SRHR into climate policies. This requires embedding SRHR in climate adaptation by assessing climate risks to care, especially for adolescents, women, and persons with disabilities. It also means strengthening resilient SRHR systems, building capacity on climate, gender, disability, and SRHR, and integrating climate education into SRHR programmes. Effective approaches are intersectional, community-led, and tailored to local contexts, combining environmental protection and SRHR outcomes. They promote gender equality, address gendered power relations and inequalities, support women and girls on the frontlines of climate change, and strengthen women’s participation in governance and economic autonomy.
Protecting the planet for ourselves and future generations requires tackling the real drivers of the climate crisis: unsustainable production and consumption, extractive economic models, and the inequitable use of natural resources. Climate adaptation demands systemic change – not scrutiny of women’s reproductive choices. Climate policies should focus on transforming these structural drivers while ensuring everyone can exercise their sexual and reproductive rights free from coercion or discrimination.
Answers by IPPF EN (Sevara Khamidova, Architect of Cooperation for Central Asia and Georgia; Chiara Cosentino, Coordinator of Countdown 2030 Europe)
Sevara Khamidova, Architect for cooperation for Central Asia and Georgia, IPPF EN
For about 15 years, Sevara has been working in the field of capacity building for youth, SRHR, media, and gender issues in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. She specializes in social research, fundraising, project development, and creating educational programs. Sevara holds an MA in Media, Culture, and Society from Lancaster University and an Executive MA in Development Policies and Practices of Central Asia from the Graduate Institute for International Studies and Development in Geneva, Switzerland. She has previously worked with UN agencies such as UNAIDS, UNDP, and UNFPA.
Chiara Cosentin, Coordinator Countdown 2030 Europe
Chiara Cosentino is a passionate professional who has worked at the International Planned Parenthood Federation – European Network (IPPF EN), as Coordinator of Countdown 2030 Europe since 2021, leading a consortium of 14 NGOs advocating for increased prioritization and investments for access to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) worldwide. Prior to this, she worked in the human rights, SRHR and gender equality sector both at civil society and UN level for several years. Chiara’s areas of interest are bodily autonomy, sexual and reproductive justice, particularly at its intersections with GBV, as well as European and international advocacy.
