Urban adaptation for gender equality and social justice

This background paper, prepared for Progress of the World’s Women 2026, examines whether current approaches to urban climate adaptation are advancing gender equality and social justice.

The authors draw on evidence from the 2023 Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) database covering 910 cities, a rapid review of peer-reviewed literature across 23 cities, and six illustrative case studies, including Barcelona’s feminist Superblocks, Manizales’ Guardians of the Hillside programme, and Shenzhen’s Sponge City initiative. Guided by a feminist climate justice framework, the analysis assesses progress across the three dimensions of recognition, representation, and redistribution.

The findings suggest that, while urban adaptation efforts are expanding, they remain insufficiently responsive to gender equality objectives. The paper warns against the growing risk of a “feminization of responsibility”, whereby the burden of urban climate adaptation is shifted onto the unpaid labour and voluntary efforts of women and marginalized groups.

It also highlights seven interconnected and actionable levers for change, spanning policy, multilevel governance, institutional capacity, collective action, behavioural change, finance, and technology, which are critical for scaling effective and gender-responsive adaptation. Following peer review, the paper will be published in the UN Women Discussion Paper Series.