Gender and Climate Resilience

Moderator/organisers:

Annet Mulema, International Development Resarch Centre (IDRC)
Jane Mbolle Chah, University of Nigeria Nsukka, Nigeria

A systematic review of gender perspectives in vulnerability to climate change impacts on agriculture and food security in Nigeria
Gender inequality is one of the main drivers of food insecurity, as it is the main threat to the agricultural production activities of women due to climate change. Women’s vulnerability to climate change is a problem in Nigeria, yet the interplay between gender and vulnerability to climate change impacts on agriculture and food security is poorly documented. The review was conducted in accordance with the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses) method. The review documents the relative neglect of gender issues in research on vulnerability to climate change impacts on agriculture with implications for food security in Nigeria. More importantly, the existing studies are limited in number with little focus on food security in relation to vulnerability. Moreover, the majority of these studies have conceptualized gender in terms of two sexes: male and female. Few studies looked at the socio-cultural roles played by men and women. Results revealed that women are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change impacts on agriculture and food security than men. Several factors have contributed to these gender inequalities; education, age, access to land. Gaps in gender research include the limited gender studies in the Northern region of the country, the little conceptualization of gender as the sociocultural roles of men and women with regards to the vulnerability to climate change impact on agriculture and food security; the long-term impacts of vulnerability to climate change on social cohesion in rural households and the sustainability of strategies to reduce rural women’s vulnerability.

Lora Forsythe and Valerie Nelson, University of Greenwich, UK

A review of tools and methods for addressing gender in Climate Smart and Resilient Agriculture

Margaret Alston, Monash University, Australia / Newcastle University, UK

Transformative Resilience in the context of Climate Change
Climate-related weather events, environmental change and shocks and crises will have gender differentiated consequences for physical and mental health of rural communities and farmers in the coming years. As global providers of major foodstuffs (e.g. beef, wheat, dairy and dairy products), Australia and United States’ farmers and farm communities will be impacted not only economically, but also physically and emotionally, by climate-related weather. With such large-scale environmental disruption, there is growing awareness of ecological grief, whereby people that retain working relationships to natural environments are more likely to experience grief from ecological losses, such as loss of ecosystems and livestock due to acute or chronic environmental change (Cunsolo and Ellis 2018). Because of men and women’s differing positions, roles, and responsibilities within rural communities, gender plays an important role in individual experiences with climate change adaption (Alston 2013; McKune et al. 2015) and in responding to shocks and crises including the COVID-19 pandemic (Burki 2020). Our cross-national US-Australian research team will use in-depth interviews with male and female farmers in three communities impacted by climate change and shocks and crises in Australia to explore how socio-economic, political, and cultural dynamics shape men and women’s responses in farming communities. The focus of this presentation will be upon analysis of data in on rural community in North-Eastern Victoria, Australia. As we work towards developing our understanding of transformative resilience, we will present preliminary findings from this subset of interviews on the connection between gender and response to shocks and crises.

Nitya Chanana & Stephanie Ma, CCAFS / Columbia University, USA

Gender and Climate Resilient Agriculture- A scoping review
Climate resilient agriculture is aimed at building the resilience of agricultural systems to both long term as well as short term climate risks through adaptation and mitigation strategies (FAO 2021). Understanding the gender aspects of climate resilient agriculture is key to ensure gender equitable outcomes of interventions. While literature is steadily increasing in the area of understanding gender dynamics with respect to climate resilient agriculture, there still remain certain gaps and challenges that require further efforts and attention.