By Melissa Ananthraj, Director, Programs, Climate Action, AVPN, Asia

Extreme heat is rapidly emerging as one of Asia’s most significant, yet under-recognised, urban disasters. Unlike floods or cyclones that trigger immediate emergency response, heat is a slow-onset hazard that quietly intensifies over time, affecting health, livelihoods, productivity, and social equity. Yet its impacts are far from equal. Women, particularly those working in informal economies, home-based enterprises, caregiving roles, and small businesses, often experience disproportionate exposure while carrying additional unpaid care responsibilities. With limited access to cooling, healthcare, financial protection, decision-making, extreme heat is increasingly becoming not only a climate challenge, but also a gender and development challenge.

These reflections draw on insights from the AVPN Climate x Health Community of Practice, seeded by Autodesk Foundation which brings together innovators, investors, governments, researchers, philanthropies and healthcare practitioners to explore how climate and health solutions can be scaled across Asia. Drawing on insights from innovators, investors, governments, researchers, philanthropies, and healthcare practitioners across the region, the paper concludes that Asia’s greatest challenge is no longer a shortage of innovative solutions. Rather, it is creating the enabling ecosystems, financing mechanisms, and partnerships that allow proven solutions to reach scale.

It identifies extreme heat as a priority requiring a shift from reactive response towards prevention. Cities must invest upstream in early warning systems, heat surveillance, adaptive urban planning, community cooling infrastructure, and workplace protection measures that reduce exposure before people become ill. These interventions not only save lives but also protect livelihoods, strengthen labour productivity, and improve urban resilience.

Despite growing innovation across Asia, many heat resilience solutions remain trapped in the pilot phase. Fragmented financing, limited procurement pathways, and weak integration into public systems continue to prevent successful innovations from reaching the communities that need them most. This is where social investment has an essential role to play. Philanthropy, family offices, impact investors, and corporate social investment can provide catalytic capital that enables experimentation, strengthens local organisations, generates evidence, and de-risks solutions for larger public and private investment.

Equally important is ensuring that investment is guided by equity. Heat exposure is not evenly distributed across cities. Women street vendors, waste pickers, market traders, delivery riders, construction workers, and owners of micro and small enterprises frequently face the highest levels of exposure while remaining largely invisible in urban planning. Social investment should therefore support locally led and gender-responsive solutions that recognise women not simply as beneficiaries of resilience programmes, but as entrepreneurs, caregivers, community leaders, and innovators whose knowledge is critical to effective adaptation.

Better integration of climate, health, gender, and socioeconomic data can also help cities identify hidden vulnerabilities and direct resources where they are needed most.

As Asia’s cities continue to warm, mobilising social investment is about far more than financing individual projects. It is about building resilient urban systems that protect lives, sustain livelihoods, and reduce inequality. By aligning capital with prevention, equity, and long-term systems change, social investors can help transform extreme heat from a growing urban risk into an opportunity to build healthier, more inclusive, and climate-resilient cities. The challenge now is not whether solutions exist, but whether we can mobilise the partnerships and capital needed to ensure they reach the people who need them most.

Acknowledgements: This article draws on insights from the AVPN Climate x Health Community of Practice, an initiative of the AVPN Climate Action team, made possible through the support of the Autodesk Foundation.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this piece are those of the author/s and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of AIDMI.