Addressing the 4th Gender Climate Awards in Islamabad, Senator Sherry Rehman described women as the ‘last-mile managers of resilience’, underlining their central role in helping communities absorb and recover from climate shocks. She framed everyday care and resource work by women as essential to broader climate resilience strategies across Pakistan.
The event, organised by the Civil Society Coalition for Climate Change, the Embassy of France in Pakistan, UN Women and the United Nations Development Programme, emphasised the practical leadership women provide in crises. Senator Rehman noted that despite social and economic constraints, women frequently act as primary caregivers, local resource managers and first responders during climate emergencies.
Highlighting the gendered impacts of environmental change, she pointed out that women and girls make up the majority of climate-displaced populations globally and shoulder disproportionate burdens from water scarcity, food insecurity and declining agricultural productivity. Rehman recalled the catastrophic 2022 floods that affected more than 650,000 pregnant women and severely disrupted access to healthcare and sanitation, a vivid example of how disasters erode household resilience.
Describing climate change as a polycrisis across water, food, health and livelihoods, she stressed that women are not merely victims but critical agents of adaptation. Senator Rehman cited women-focused land ownership programmes and the Benazir Income Support Programme as policy examples that build economic security and strengthen climate resilience at the local level.
With warnings of intensifying heatwaves, worsening water shortages and shifting weather patterns, she urged federal and provincial governments, development partners and civil society to scale up investment in women-led climate action. According to Rehman, empowering women delivers lasting benefits for families and communities and is a practical path to sustainable development in Pakistan’s climate response.
‘The women we honour today are already building the resilience that communities need,’ she said, adding that recognising and supporting these leaders must become a central part of national climate policy and programming.
