We’re championing and scaling women-centered heat solutions.

In India we are working to improve the lives of women in the informal sector for whom extreme heat is no longer seasonal or episodic—it is a permanent and intensifying feature of daily life. As temperatures rise, women in India’s informal workforce, such as street vendors, waste recyclers, salt pan miners, head loaders, are facing increasing risks to their health and income. Many work outdoors for long hours with limited access to shade, water, or toilets, in temperatures exceeding 113°F (45°C). During heatwaves they report losing 40–50% of their income, a substantial burden that impacts not just the women themselves but their children, families and communities. For these women, access to savings, insurance, and credit are essential levers for survival.

Working closely with the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) and the All India Disaster Mitigation Institute, HERA is integrating financial and non-financial solutions—such as cash assistance, parametric insurance, early warning systems, and protective equipment—to help women in the informal workforce care for themselves and their families, paying for essential life items such as food, school fees, and health care. By combining risk reduction and risk transfer solutions, we are providing holistic coverage for those experiencing disproportionate impacts of dangerously high temperatures. These interventions aim to build resilience, reduce vulnerability, and provide women with the tools they need to protect their health and safeguard their livelihoods in an increasingly hotter world.

In Pakistan—the world’s fifth-most vulnerable country to climate disasters—we are working with women and communities who face disproportionate impacts of extreme heat, yet remain underrepresented in resilience decision-making.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, we partner with local NGOs to raise awareness, build local structures that foster shared discussion and leadership around climate-driven extreme heat and are exploring a wide range of heat resilience solutions that enable us to tailor our interventions to ensure that we are meeting the needs of women, their families, and their communities. Together, we are co-designing, testing, and scaling locally driven solutions that raise women’s voices and help build long-term resilience. Together, we are building trusted community networks, creating a platform for women’s leadership, and developing practical responses to extreme heat.

In Freetown, HERA is working alongside women, market leaders, and city officials to confront the growing threat of extreme heat. As the capital of Sierra Leone expands rapidly, rising temperatures and unplanned urban growth are intensifying heat exposure—especially for women who are concentrated in markets, informal settlements and outdoor work.

More than 35% of Freetown’s residents—a majority of whom are women—live in informal settlements, where homes constructed from corrugated iron and tin trap heat indoors, turning houses into ovens long after sunset. At the same time, the city’s economy relies heavily on informal, outdoor labor. Women traders, vendors, and workers are therefore exposed to dangerous heat both at home and at work—often with limited access to cooling, healthcare, or financial protection.

Partnering closely with the local government and community stakeholders, HERA is co-designing practical, scalable solutions codified in Freetown’s (and Africa’s) first ever Heat Action Plan that includes everything from heat action planning to early warning systems to urban shade structures that reduce heat risk while strengthening women’s livelihoods and leadership in shaping the city’s resilience future.

In Thailand, our work focuses on raising awareness of the impacts of extreme heat on women’s health and livelihoods, activating our partners, and co-designing solutions with women working in the informal economy so they can prepare for, endure, and recover from dangerous heat.

More than 11 million women in Thailand earn their living in heat-exposed informal trades such as street vending, motorbike transport, domestic care, and home-based production. They are often primary earners whose income sustains household stability, education, and health, while powering local and national economies. Yet they face escalating heat impacts with limited protection.

HERA works alongside these women and grassroots partners like HomeNet to catalyze gender-responsive solutions specifically tailored to the urgent needs of Thailand’s women informal workforce—advancing solutions that reduce risk, protect livelihoods, and turn extreme heat from an unchecked daily threat into a shared challenge met with collective resilience.

In Los Angeles, HERA launched a groundbreaking South-to-North initiative that expands our parametric heat insurance and direct cash support program, first piloted in India, to the United States.

Low-income street vendors in Los Angeles—like hundreds of millions of informal workers worldwide, many of them women—are on the frontlines of rising temperatures. As heatwaves intensify, these workers face growing threats to their health and livelihoods, often without access to safety nets or workplace protections.

HERA is working in Los Angeles to provide heat-triggered insurance payouts, forecast-based cash assistance, early warnings, and practical risk-reduction measures. Working alongside women vendors, local NGOs, and insurers, the initiative co-designs protections that help street vendors safeguard both their health and income as Southern California heatwaves grow more severe.

As heatwaves in African cities become more frequent and deadly, HERA’s African Urban Heat Resilience Grant Program is funding practical, community-led action in four cities: Accra, Paynesville, Monrovia, and Kassa.

At the 2025 Africa Climate Summit, these cities were selected to receive $40,000 grants to build local heat resilience capacity. The program helps cities pinpoint heat hotspots, understand local risks, and deliver tailored solutions to protect those most exposed—especially women and vulnerable communities.