Dear friends, we need to talk,
We trust strangers with our savings, corporations with our personal data, supply chains we cannot see, and institutions headquartered thousands of kilometers away. Yet when it comes to climate action, we still struggle to trust the people who live closest to the problem, to drive the solutions. That may be one of philanthropy’s most costly contradictions – and the greatest missed opportunity in the fight for our planet.
Why do we hesitate to place resources and decision-making power in the hands of the people who know their ecosystems, risks, and realities best? Why do we fund new structures to solve problems while overlooking the leadership, relationships, institutions, and community infrastructure that already exist and are delivering results?
The climate crisis is accelerating faster than climate finance is adapting. Recent scientific findings on the Amazon rainforest underscore the 1.5°C target as a physical limit beyond which ecosystems risk irreversible collapse, not merely a political aspiration to negotiate around. And while philanthropy deliberates how to address the climate crisis, women and girls’ shoulder a disproportionate burden of its environmental impacts: they are far more likely to die during climate disasters, face higher levels of food insecurity, and are projected to experience rising poverty as climate change intensifies.
Yet frontline communities are not deliberating about the consequences or waiting for solutions—they are already creating them, at scale. In South Sulawesi, Indonesia, women from coastal and island communities, supported by the Global Alliance for Green and Gender Action, have built an inter-island feminist network for water justice. Confronting unequal access to clean water, destructive reclamation projects, and marine sand extraction, they have organized, strengthened advocacy, forged alliances, and advanced more equitable environmental governance. Their work protects ecosystems, livelihoods, and democratic participation. As we mark World Oceans Day this week, it is a reminder that climate justice and ocean justice are deeply interconnected, and that communities closest to environmental harm are often those leading the most effective solutions.
Despite years of commitments to localization, only a fraction of climate finance reaches local organizations directly, and even less reaches women-led groups, feminist movements and Indigenous communities. The evidence is clear: bold climate solutions and collective resilience is built when resources and decision-making power are placed in the hands of those closest to the challenges, women, girls, inter, non-binary and trans people.
The real challenge for philanthropy is not finding solutions. It is shifting power. The question is whether we are willing to follow the leadership of the communities that have been advancing them all along. Trust, in this context, is not an abstract value but an operational necessity. If you want to have further conversations on this, please reach out to n.grutter@fcamfoundation.org.
Noemi Grütter
Head of Advocacy and Partnerships
Global Alliance for Green and Gender Action