08.07.2025
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Marina Stefanova, Vice-Dean for “Sustainability, Empowerment, and Engagement” at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration (FEBA), Sofia University, participated in the fifth Athens ESG Forum, held on 26 June 2025 at the Amphitheatre of the Eugenides Foundation in Athens. Under the theme “From Vision to Action – Creating Value and Achieving Impact”, the forum brought together over 70 speakers and more than 300 participants from business, academia, public institutions, and civil society to discuss current challenges and strategic approaches in the ESG domain.
During the event, Assoc. Prof. Stefanova presented the global initiative “Call for a Just Finance”, launched by women from Southeast Europe during COP29. The initiative explores the intersection of climate action and gender equality and highlights the roles women play as caregivers, workers, entrepreneurs, and change leaders.
In the climate finance session, Assoc. Prof. Stefanova introduced the report “Women and Just Climate Finance”. The publication provides a comprehensive analysis of the intricate relationship between gender, climate change, and finance. It emphasizes that climate change is a crisis with a distinct gender dimension, disproportionately affecting women and girls, especially those in vulnerable and marginalized communities. Despite bearing a heavier burden of climate-related risks and playing a crucial role in sustaining households and communities, women have historically been underrepresented in financial decision-making and in the flow of climate investments aimed at mitigation and adaptation.
The report argues that women are not merely passive victims but active agents of resilience and transformation, contributing significantly through caregiving, education, entrepreneurship, and leadership. Nevertheless, only about 2% of global climate finance is explicitly allocated to projects that promote gender equality—highlighting a major missed opportunity and a structural flaw in how climate solutions are conceptualized and funded.
To address these challenges, the report presents Gender-Responsive Climate Finance (GRCF) as a strategic necessity rather than a moral obligation. This involves designing, implementing, and evaluating financial instruments and investments that explicitly consider gender to ensure that both women and men equally benefit from climate action—and that financial flows do not exacerbate existing inequalities. Investing in women’s participation leads to more successful climate projects, greater reinvestment of income into communities, and stronger environmental outcomes. The report explores a range of financial mechanisms—public, international, private, and community-based—that can foster gender equality in climate action.
Academic institutions, such as Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” and the ESG Lab at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, are recognized as key players in this transformation—generating knowledge, educating future leaders, and catalyzing new financial and institutional models.