Despite contributing less than 0.03% of global greenhouse gas emissions, Pacific Island countries face some of the world’s most severe climate risks. A strengthening El Niño is placing pressure on the region’s water security, with disproportionate impacts for women and girls. In October, Fiji and Tuvalu host the pre-COP31 meetings, the preparatory talks ahead of the 31st Conference of the Parties (COP31) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. That is an opportunity to put water security, gender equality and climate justice on the agenda.
WaterAid established an advisory group of Pacific women’s rights groups, and partnered with the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS-ISF) to research what Pacific activists say is most urgently needed to connect gender equality, climate justice and water security. The research, “Rising Tides, Rising Voices: Building a Pacific Movement for Gender Justice, Climate and Water”, was undertaken in late 2025 and early 2026 and captured the views of 46 activists, practitioners and grassroots leaders: interviews with eight advocates from Samoa, Fiji, Vanuatu, Kiribati and Papua New Guinea, and an online survey of 38 practitioners working in or on 24 Pacific countries and territories. The research is intended to support the 18 climate justice commitments in the 15th Pacific Women’s Triennial outcome statement, agreed in 2024.
Respondents named the exclusion of women from decision-making, including from customary and traditional structures, as the root cause of every other gendered impact of climate change and water insecurity. It was the issue most often cited as urgent (53% of respondents), and the issue most often said to need more attention in global debates (79%). Advocates described how women hold the knowledge about household water needs but are absent from the meetings where water decisions are made, particularly at community and subnational level.
Disability equity showed the opposite pattern. Only 21% of respondents named it among the most urgent issues, and only 28% said it needed more attention in global debates — suggesting limited awareness, even within the sector, of how disability and water insecurity compound each other. At the same time, some interviews illustrated the challenge. One disability advocate described women with disabilities staying home through cyclones rather than using evacuation centres that are not wheelchair accessible, have unadapted washrooms and are too crowded for privacy or safety.
Water and climate justice is gender justice. Any solutions that ignore women, young women and gender-diverse people will fail. — Pacific advocate
Asked what was most urgently needed, respondents pointed to women’s leadership in climate and water governance (72%), gender-responsive financing (59%) and the protection of freshwater and ecosystems. Asked what was politically realistic now, they gave very different answers. Technical priorities, such as water, sanitation and hygiene in schools and health facilities, ranked highest, rising 33 percentage points between the urgency and realism rankings, while women’s leadership and gender-responsive financing fell by about 18 points. The priorities that would most directly redistribute power, including women’s leadership, disability equity, unpaid care work and diverse sexual orientation and gender identity, ranked lowest for political realism. Advocates described this as a considered response to a difficult political climate: in Vanuatu, for example, organisations have moved away from the word “feminism” in public work because it provoked a backlash that shut down conversations.
Advocates also called for a shift away from narratives of deficit and vulnerability, towards strength and resilience.
The talk is about us drowning, always making people feel so vulnerable. How do we get away from always feeling like the victim? How do we actually talk about things that show our strengths? — Advocate from Samoa
Health and wellbeing framing dominates current advocacy (55% of respondents) and respondents still judged it effective. Vulnerability framing was among the most common and the least effective. The largest untapped opportunity lies in narratives about leadership, resilience and cultural knowledge, including oral storytelling traditions such as Talanoa in Fiji and Storian in Vanuatu, which advocates said are underused. One advocate from Kiribati rejected the “sinking island” framing entirely, arguing that the country is changing shape rather than disappearing, and that the sinking narrative erases the agency of its people.
On who holds the power to drive change, grassroots and feminist organisations reported little influence over governments, climate finance and the private sector. They named local and subnational governments as their highest-priority advocacy targets (57%), yet also as among the institutions they influence least. International NGOs showed the opposite pattern: highest for current influence, lowest as a target.
Interviewees said Pacific governments receive money from the Green Climate Fund that does not reach communities or grassroots organisations. Funding largely flows from donors through national governments, and grassroots organisations must fit their work within externally set priorities to access it.
The biggest push at every Pacific meeting I’ve been at was for climate funding, for green funding to come to the projects that are community level. And getting community-level knowledge and traditional knowledge. People talk about it all the time, but there hasn’t been any funding for it. — Advocate from Samoa
The research sets out five calls to action for practitioners, decision-makers and development partners to take into global climate discussions.
The first is to integrate water security into Pacific gender equality and climate justice action. Governments and development partners should make safe, reliable and inclusive water security a core measure of progress on gender and climate justice, and build it into agendas, policies, programs and financing.
The second is to treat Pacific women, women with disabilities and gender-diverse people as equal decision-makers. Pacific women in all their diversity, including adolescent girls, older people, people with diverse sexual orientation and gender identity, and women with disabilities, should hold paid, influential roles in governance, steering committees, program design and delivery. Participation also needs practical support: transport, childcare, accessible information and assistive devices.
The third is to invest in Pacific feminist and grassroots movement-building for the long term. Climate and development finance should provide direct, accessible and long-term funding to Pacific women-led, disability-inclusive and grassroots organisations to deliver locally led water and climate solutions. Funding should support feminist coalitions, youth leadership, peer education and community-based practitioners without forcing organisations to compete, merge or compromise their priorities.
The fourth is to shift Pacific climate and water narratives from vulnerability to strength and agency. Global advocacy should stop framing Pacific communities as passive victims of climate change and instead reflect their resilience, leadership, capabilities and knowledge. Water security narratives should value traditional ecological knowledge and show pathways to solutions that transfer power and maintain climate hope.
The fifth is to name and dismantle the structural barriers driving water insecurity and climate and gender inequality. Respondents named the effects of labour mobility schemes on families and care responsibilities, corporate water extraction, inequitable wealth distribution, inadequate regulation, and the lack of transparency and accountability among major polluters. They should be addressed through policy, regulation, financing and corporate accountability.
As global leaders gather in the Pacific for pre-COP31, Pacific advocates have set out a clear agenda: recognise water security as central to gender equality and climate justice, ensure women and people with disabilities shape decisions, and invest in Pacific-led movements for the long term.
The full report is available here.
The research was guided by an advisory group comprising the co-authors together with Dani Barrington, Pisey Chea, Sisi Coalala, Anne-Shirley Korave, Alice Ridge, Antoneta Soares, Hannah Sibley and Viva Tatawaqa, who validated early findings and shaped the call to action.
