ADB Data Room: Strengthening Women’s Resilience to Heat Stress
30 August 2024

Climate change is increasing the intensity, frequency, and duration of heat waves, disproportionately affecting women across Asia and the Pacific. Women, especially those engaged in informal and outdoor work, face heightened risks to their health, economic productivity and social welfare. Addressing these impacts requires targeted, gender-responsive solutions that acknowledge the unique challenges they face and empower them to lead in climate adaptation efforts. 
 

ADB’s technical assistance (TA) on Strengthening Women’s Resilience to Heat Stress aims to fill critical knowledge gaps and develop sustainable, scalable interventions. This TA explores how heat stress affects women differently and identifies policies, actions, and investments tailored to their needs. The initiative spans five developing member countries— Bangladesh, Cambodia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Tajikistan— each exploring innovative, gender-responsive solutions, from parametric heat insurance and early warning systems for women farmers to heat action plans in urban and rural settings. 
 

In our data room, you’ll find resources that detail our approach, ongoing projects, and emerging research. This includes our latest blogs, event recordings, updates on demonstration projects, and eventually, our publications. 
 

For periodic updates, sign up here. 

Program and Learning Materials
Session / Activity Title Speaker(s)
TA 10127 Report An overview of ADB’s technical assistance on gender and heat, outlining its objectives, approach, and planned activities across five developing member countries.
ADB launches new initiative to tackle gendered impacts of heat ADB is helping DMCs respond to rising temperatures by identifying gender-responsive policies, investments, and actions that strengthen women’s resilience to extreme heat.
Exploring how heat stress affects women across Asia and the Pacific This interactive microsite unpacks the rising threat of extreme heat, how it disproportionately impacts women, and what gender-responsive solutions can look like on the ground.
Why we need gender-transformative heat action plans This infographic breaks down why women face greater health and economic risks from extreme heat— and how tailored, gender-responsive strategies can help reduce these impacts and strengthen resilience.
How to Confront Gender-Based Violence in a Warming World This blog explores how extreme heat heightens the risk of gender-based violence— and why heat adaptation must also be a response to social injustice.
Session / Activity Title Speaker(s)
Blogs and News Who bears the heat of climate change?Helping communities deal with rising temperatures. This Straits Times feature explores how extreme heat affects vulnerable communities across Asia. Among the experts interviewed, ADB’s Zonibel Woods discusses gendered risks and the potential of parametric heat insurance for women in informal work.
Blogs and News Tailored Solutions Empower Women to Overcome Extreme Heat Challenges
This blog spotlights gender-responsive strategies— from early warnings to insurance— through real stories of women adapting to heat stress across Asia and the Pacific.
Blogs and News Safeguarding Women’s Health in the Face of Rising Temperatures In this blog, Zonibel Woods and Micaela P. Agoncillo unpack the cascading health risks women face in a warming world, from cardiovascular strain to disrupted reproductive health, and call for gender-responsive public health strategies to meet the growing challenge of extreme heat.
Blogs and News How to Confront Gender-Based Violence in a Warming World This blog explores how rising temperatures intensify gender-based violence, especially in vulnerable communities. Drawing on global and regional evidence, the blog calls for integrated climate and protection policies that address the risks women face during extreme heat.
Blogs and News How to Address the Impact of Climate Change-Driven Extreme Heat on Women’s Lives Zonibel Woods outlines how extreme heat is altering women’s daily lives across Asia and the Pacific— from health risks and labor losses to inequitable access to cooling. This blog urges gender-responsive action plans that center women’s voices in climate adaptation efforts.
Blogs and News Extreme Heat to Lead to Significant Productivity Losses On ANC, April Lee-Tan interviews Zonibel Woods on the growing risks of extreme heat in the Philippines, including its impact on women and projected productivity losses across the region.
Blogs and News The Toll That Extreme Heat Takes on Women The Hindu spotlights findings from ADB’s Rising Above the Heat microsite, which details how extreme heat worsens gender inequality across health, economic, and social dimensions— especially for women in vulnerable communities.
Session / Activity Title Speaker(s)
Knowledge Events Women on the Frontlines of a Boiling World Dr. Jason Lee of the WHO–WMO Southeast Asia Heat Health Hub unpacks how extreme heat impacts women’s health, from hormonal influences on thermoregulation to social stressors. He urges gender-responsive solutions that include behavioral adaptation and greater female representation in heat-health research.
Knowledge Events Hot Cities, Cool Solutions at COP29 At a high-level session co-hosted by ADB and the Atlantic Council’s Climate Resilience Center, experts and policymakers gathered to discuss gender-responsive strategies for tackling urban heat, calling for inclusive planning that centers women and vulnerable communities in building cooler, more resilient cities.
Knowledge Events Preparing for a Future of Extreme Heat Abhiyant Tiwari of NRDC India joins ADB for a virtual learning session on gender-responsive Heat Action Plans, drawing lessons from India and calling for locally led, inclusive planning to address extreme heat.
Knowledge Events Working in Extreme Heat Dr. Andreas Flouris joins ADB for a learning session on heat and work, emphasizing gendered health risks and sharing strategies to protect women, including pregnant workers, from occupational heat stress.
Knowledge Events Transforming Heat Action ADB intern Labisha Uprety explores how heat action plans can better account for gender, identifying promising strategies, gaps, and potential partners to strengthen women’s resilience to rising temperatures.
Knowledge Events Heat Action Day 2024 ADB marked its first Heat Action Day with high-level speakers including President Masa and UN Habitat’s Eleni Myrivili, spotlighting the urgent need for coordinated, gender-responsive solutions to rising temperatures.
Knowledge Events Building Urban Heat Resilience in North Dhaka At ADB’s Gender Forum 2023, Bushra Afreen (former Chief Heat Officer for North Dhaka) spoke on women and urban heat. She shared how inclusive city planning and public awareness campaigns are helping build resilience in one of the world’s hottest urban centers.
Session / Activity Title Speaker(s)
Videos and Reels Tackling Urban Heat Zonibel Woods breaks down the urban heat island effect and shares practical, people-centered strategies to cool cities and protect the most vulnerable.
Videos and Reels Helping Women Farmers Adapt to Heat In Cambodia’s Kampot Province, women farmers are adapting to rising temperatures with solar-powered cooling systems supported by ADB— preserving their crops, livelihoods, and resilience amid hotter days.
Videos and Reels The Gender Gap in Heat Health At the GHHIN Southeast Asia Heat Health Forum in Singapore, WHO and Red Cross experts shared how rising temperatures endanger women’s health, and called for inclusive strategies that leave no one behind.
Videos and Reels Designing Heat-Resilient Cities for Women At COP29, Zonibel Woods and Jinha Kim highlight how inclusive city planning rooted in women’s experiences can drive innovative solutions to extreme heat.
Videos and Reels Responding to the Call to Action on Extreme Heat As global temperatures rise, ADB reinforces its support for the UN Secretary-General’s Call to Action on Extreme Heat— championing solutions that center women’s resilience, from innovative insurance schemes to sustainable cooling.
Videos and Reels What Does Heat Feel Like in Dhaka? In one of the world’s hottest cities, young people share how extreme heat is impacting their health, safety, and futures, and call for inclusive heat resilience strategies that prioritize the most affected.
Videos and Reels Cooling Cities by Design Krista Milne, Melbourne’s Chief Heat Officer, shares how the city is confronting rising temperatures through smart urban planning, integrating heat into every council decision, expanding green cover, and rolling out cooling infrastructure.
Videos and Reels What’s one step you would take to strengthen women’s resilience to heat stress? Participants at an ADB workshop in Dhaka shared practical ideas to strengthen women’s resilience to extreme heat, from investing in early warning systems to creating safe, inclusive cooling shelters.
Videos and Reels Smart Solutions for a Hotter Cambodia Rising temperatures threaten Cambodia’s key sectors, tourism and agriculture, and the women who sustain them. ADB’s Jinha Kim shares how gender-sensitive early warning systems can help communities adapt and respond.
Videos and Reels Why Heat Is the Ultimate Threat At ADB’s Annual Meeting, journalist Jeff Goodell calls heat a “predatory force” that preys on society’s most vulnerable— warning that no one is immune if the world continues to rely on fossil fuels.
Videos and Reels Leading Local Solutions to Extreme Heat At ADB’s 2024 Annual Meeting, Bushra Afreen shares how, as Dhaka’s Chief Heat Officer, she is advancing grassroots strategies to help women in low-income communities cope with soaring temperatures.
Videos and Reels Who Bears the Brunt of Extreme Heat? At ADB’s 2024 Annual Meeting, Climate Envoy Warren Evans underscores how rising heat waves are hitting women, the elderly, and low-income groups the hardest, and why adaptation efforts must prioritize their needs.
Videos and Reels The Cost of Working in Extreme Heat At ADB’s 2024 Annual Meeting, Professor Andreas Flouris breaks down how rising temperatures are driving injury, illness, and major economic losses across Asia and the Pacific.
Videos and Reels Hillary Clinton on Heat and Gender Inequality At COP28, Hillary Clinton joins global experts to spotlight how extreme heat is deepening gender gaps, and why women must lead the charge in shaping resilient, inclusive solutions.
Videos and Reels Why Extreme Heat is a Gender Issue At COP28, Zonibel Woods explains how rising heat waves are deepening gender inequalities— and why addressing women’s specific risks is key to building resilience.
Session / Activity Title Speaker(s)
Knowledge Products Heat Stress Landscape Mapping: Preliminary Findings This presentation by Nation Partners maps ADB’s existing work on heat stress and identifies strategic entry points for action. It invites reflections on early findings and points to next steps to strengthen ADB’s support to developing member countries.
Knowledge Products Why We Need Gender-Transformative Heat Action Plans This infographic examines how extreme heat disproportionately impacts women in Asia and the Pacific and outlines targeted, gender-responsive strategies to reduce these risks.
Session / Activity Title Speaker(s)
Demonstration Projects Innovative Cooling Solutions for a Warming World Through the Technology Innovation Challenge, ADB is supporting sustainable, gender-responsive cooling solutions that support women farmers on the frontlines of rising temperatures. Winning ideas are being piloted in Cambodia.
Session / Activity Title Speaker(s)
Parametric Heat Insurance ADB is piloting parametric heat insurance to support women whose livelihoods are disrupted by extreme heat, offering timely, accessible relief when it’s needed most. Stay tuned for updates.

Disclaimer

The views expressed on this website are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) or its Board of Governors or the governments they represent. ADB does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this publication and accepts no responsibility for any consequence of their use. By making any designation of or reference to a particular territory or geographic area, or by using the term “country” in this document, ADB does not intend to make any judgments as to the legal or other status of any territory or area.

Event Coordinator/s

  • Zonibel Woods

ADB Organizer/s

  • Gender Equality Division

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