For Indian women workers, a just transition means surviving climate impacts with dignity

For the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), just transition begins not just with carbon, but with resilience – the daily struggle of poor women to withstand the heatwaves, floods and crop failures already battering their lives. Climate shocks that are stripping poor women not only of income, but of dignity.

Representing 3.2 million informal workers across 18 states – street vendors, waste pickers, construction labourers, home-based producers and small farmers – SEWA has spent more than five decades fighting for rights and recognition.

“This is what ‘just transition’ must mean for us,” says Mansi Shah, senior coordinator at SEWA. “It is not only about future green jobs or phasing out polluting industries. For women workers on the frontlines, it is about surviving heatwaves, floods and crop failures today – and doing so with dignity.”

SEWA’s own surveys underline the urgency. More than 90% of women workers report livelihood losses from climate shocks, while 74% say their children’s education has been disrupted. Over 80% of households face water insecurity, 62% food insecurity, and nearly 40% report mental health impacts.

“When people talk about adaptation or resilience, it sounds abstract,” Shah says. “For our members, it means the difference between feeding your children and selling your dignity.”

“On one side, hungry children. On the other, her respect”

One member – a smallholder farmer – told SEWA organisers what happened when a prolonged heatwave dried her fields and wiped out any possible work as an agricultural labourer. With children to feed and no savings, she went to a local moneylender.

The terms were brutal: extortionate interest and demands for sexual favours.

“She had to choose between her children’s hunger and her own respect,” Shah says. “That is the kind of choice no woman should ever face. But climate change is forcing it every day.”

By chance, the woman had been enrolled in SEWA’s pilot parametric heat insurance scheme – designed to trigger automatic payouts when temperatures cross preset thresholds, providing fast, predictable relief when heat destroys livelihoods. On the very day she faced the moneylender, the insurance activated and 1,800 rupees (about $20) landed in her account – enough to buy food for two weeks, enough to walk away.

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Women-led solutions prove just transition works

For Meenaben, a SEWA smallholder in Kutch district, the blow came from unseasonal rain and hail. Her 1.5-acre rain-fed millet crop, almost ready for harvest – and crucial fodder for her cattle – was shredded overnight.

“Government relief can take months to reach a village,” Shah explains. “So women like Meenaben are pushed toward debt – often predatory – just to survive the gap.”

SEWA’s answer is speed and self-help. Through its Livelihood Recovery & Resilience Fund (LRRF) – a blended pool seeded by one day’s wage per member per month, matched by philanthropy – women can access rapid loans within 14 days of a climate shock, long before state compensation arrives. The fund kept Meenaben’s household afloat, paid for inputs for the next sowing, and avoided a spiral into debt.

“We can’t wait for others to save us,” says Shah. “So SEWA women build their own safety nets – and get back to work.”

From Gujarat to the Global South

After piloting its member-owned LRRF a decade ago, SEWA shared its results at a global women leaders’ meeting in 2023 with Secretary Hillary Clinton, Ambassador Melanne Verveer and women’s organisations from Africa and Latin America. The message was clear: women workers across the Global South face the same shocks and the same finance gap.

On the strength of that model, SEWA partnered with the Clinton Global Initiative to launch the Global Climate Resilience Facility (GCRF) in February 2024. Its framework is complete and fundraising is underway. Once capitalised, it will support frontline women’s organisations to run LRRF-style funds, expand parametric insurance, and scale women-led adaptation and clean-energy solutions across the Global South.

From rural daughter to solar entrepreneur

If these stories show the cost of climate shocks, Payalben Munjpura’s shows what investment unlocks.

Payalben grew up in a village of 250 households in Surendranagar district. Her father was an electrician. Like most rural daughters, she was expected to stay indoors – until SEWA persuaded her parents to let her train as a solar PV technician.

She completed a three-month course and certification, then formed a team of four. Drawing on her father’s skills, she brought him into the enterprise, saving costs and rooting the work in local expertise. Together, they now install rooftop solar systems in nearby villages through India’s new PM Surya Ghar scheme, which offers households subsidies covering up to 60% of installation costs.

Her income has transformed the family: she helped reclaim their mortgaged farm, paid for her younger brother’s education, and rebuilt their home.

“Women are always seen as energy users,” Shah says. “Payalben shows they can be owners, managers and distributors. If skills are brought to their doorstep, women will turn the climate crisis into opportunity.”

The women-led solutions already in motion

SEWA’s members are not waiting for policy promises – they are already building resilience from the ground up. Through its Building Cleaner Skies campaign, SEWA links local experience with a broader strategy of women-led adaptation.

Its Climate School turns climate science into simple visual lessons, training grassroots leaders as climate educators. Its Green Villages initiatives bring clean cooking, biogas, drip irrigation and rooftop solar – all managed by women handling finance, vendors and repairs.

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The movement also nurtures young women climate entrepreneurs who deliver adaptation technologies and green livelihoods. And when shocks hit, SEWA’s insurance and finance schemes move faster than the state, trigger quick payouts and provide loans within 14 days.

“These are not abstract pilots,” says Shah. “They are working now, in villages across Gujarat. The problem is not solutions. The problem is finance.”

Lessons for COP30

A just transition must also confront the realities of climate impacts. For informal women workers, it is not about distant promises of green jobs, but about surviving the effects of warming now – and building social protection systems that can secure their livelihoods.

SEWA’s experience shows that women-led action works. From grassroots insurance schemes to rooftop solar enterprises, women are already designing and scaling climate solutions that protect both their income and dignity.

To take these efforts further, finance for just transition policies must be deployed – and made accessible to women on the frontlines. The Belém Action Mechanism (BAM) for a Global Just Transition – proposed by civil society as a key deliverable for COP30 – could help bridge that gap by aligning governments, international institutions and community movements, creating clearer pathways for funding and technical support to reach grassroots initiatives directly.

But whatever happens in Belém this November, for millions of women like SEWA’s members, the transition has already begun.

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