Since the establishment of the Pacific Islands Feminist Alliance for Climate Justice (PIFA4CJ/the Alliance) our Movement Led Committee (MLC) has had access to AUD 2,380,290.94 in our feminist basket to support feminist movement building and collective leadership, rapid grants and funding of collective advocacy to bring visibility to Pacific Island women’s expertise and leadership including in inter-governmental and multilateral systems.
The MLC brings together Pacific Island feminists from youth movements, disability rights movements, LGBTQIA movements, and disaster preparedness and response work.
You can learn about the MLC and the inception of PIFA4CJ via this short film
Our participatory grantmaking program to resource, connect, and amplify feminist climate action across the region. The grantmaking priorities defined by the group take a holistic view of the climate crisis, recognizing that the impacts of climate change on the lives of Pacific Island women and gender expansive people go well beyond headlines.
PIFA4CJ grants protect watersheds, document women’s traditional and ancestral knowledge, establish community planning mechanisms for climate emergencies, and build the capacity of feminist organizations to respond to the urgency of community needs in the face of increasing climate impacts. It has enabled the MLLC to come together for:
“As all of these things are happening, we’ve got to tell our own story. The most important is that we just don’t hear the urgency when we’re dealing with issues of climate change and ecological justice and that’s a worry – people still don’t understand this is about you as well, not just us in the Pacific”
Noelene Nabulivou
Our Alliance was born from action. In 2021, an in‑depth Landscape Study—supported by the Global Fund for Women—brought Pacific feminist leaders together to design a Movement‑Led approach to advancing Feminist Climate Justice in the Pacific. This moment marked the foundation of a grantmaking model grounded in Pacific realities, values, and leadership.
Since 2022, we have intentionally re‑imagined grantmaking to decolonize funding processes and to align practice with principle. Our approach shifts power where it belongs: into the hands of diverse Pacific Island women, ensuring that decisions about resources, priorities, and solutions are led by those most impacted by climate injustice.
This commitment goes beyond theory. Alliance members actively engage their own organisations and community networks to strengthen accountability to women across diverse small island states. Through this collective effort, PIFA4CJ amplifies Pacific feminist expertise, fosters cross‑movement collaboration, and advances work that is intentionally intersectional and deeply interconnected—including support for women in territories still navigating political autonomy and independence.
This means investing in more than just projects. It is investing in a trusted, movement‑led ecosystem that delivers long‑term impact by resourcing local leadership, strengthening regional solidarity, and accelerating climate justice solutions rooted in Pacific knowledge and lived experience.
In 2024 we invested in the development and production of Bodies, Mud and Air which tells the story of persistent and principled feminist analysis, prevention and response, mobilisation, organising, advocacy, and movement-building seen through the work of DIVA for Equality’s Poverty to Power, Agroecology, Gender and LBQ human rights, Climate Justice and Disaster Risk Reduction local grassroots networks in rural and maritime Fiji. Through personal and political narratives, the film reveals how Pacific Island feminists are working together in defence of ourselves, other species, and the living planet
We are the fearless feminist, women and gender diverse people of small islands large oceans, Wansolwara/Wansolwata, Wasawasa, Moana, Tasi, Moana Nui Akiwa, Kala Pani, Te Taetae, Dai, Lolelaplap and Madau defend ourselves, plants, animals, other species and relatives, ancestors, kin and the living planet, as defined by our sovereign peoples. We affirm decolonization of the climate and ecological agenda as an ongoing, inclusive and accessible practice grounded in Indigenous knowledge, feminist values, and accountability to our communities says members of the Pacific Island Feminist Alliance for Climate Justice (PIFA4CJ) Movement Led Committee
In February 2025, one year after a revitalisation retreat, seven member organisations of the PIFA4CJ Movement Led Committee met in Nadi to reaffirm their collective strategy for advancing feminist climate and ecological justice across the Pacific.
Founded through a 2021 Landscape Study supported by the Global Fund for Women, PIFA4CJ has since redefined grantmaking to decolonise funding processes and place decision-making power in the hands of diverse Pacific Island women. Alliance members work through their own organisations and networks to strengthen accountability, assert Pacific feminist expertise, and build cross-movement, intersectional collaboration—including for women in territories still navigating political autonomy.
Rooted in decades of women-led organising, PIFA4CJ links climate change, disaster risk reduction, biodiversity, and loss and damage with colonial legacies, land loss, and the growing burden on women’s labour, health, and cultural survival. Central to this work is constituency-based engagement, care, and healing in the face of ongoing climate trauma.
“Our work addresses the impacts of land loss and ecosystem damage on women across the Pacific, recognising how these losses affect livelihoods, culture, and community resilience. We centre women-led responses to loss and damage, including non-economic impacts such as cultural identity and land. We are integrating the 17 Key Demands of PFDLP into local work undertaken through diverse women-led networks and organisations across Bougainville, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Vanuatu” – Frances Namoumou, PIFA4CJ Chairperson
In 2025, we deepened our shared commitment to feminist climate justice.
Through partnership with the Pacific Island Feminist Movement for Climate Justice, you can support frontline leaders across 22 island states and territories to advance locally led, inclusive climate solutions that strengthen community leadership, challenge systems that perpetuate inequality, and help deliver accountable climate action with lasting benefits for those most affected. To find out how email: pacfeminists4climatejustice@gmail.com
