Achieving Clean Air for Girls and Women

How much do air quality and pollution issues affect women and girls, and how much can those problems be solved by making sure they have a seat at the decision-making table? These questions are addressed in this podcast on International Women’s Day. It is connected to our work on the Clean Air Catalyst project.

“The whole under-representation of women in the decision-making process on air quality makes it much more difficult to design solutions. Because on the one hand you won’t have data to back up the differences in impacts and health, and you don’t have representation in the decision-making process. Work is needed on both fronts.”

—Azra Khan, specialist on transport and gender, WRI India

“I think it’s first and foremost a question of helping people really understand the really gendered dimensions of problems like air pollution and climate change. So they can understand that this experience is not gender-neutral, and therefore our response to it cannot be gender-neutral either.”

—Gillian Caldwell, Chief Climate Officer and Deputy Assistant Administrator, USAID

Useful links:

• USAID blog on Air Quality
• Clean Air Quality
• WRI Air Quality work
• WRI Podcast on Clean Air Catalyst
• WRI Gender work