Gender Inequality and Climate Change Adaptation Strategies for Food Security in Tanzania

Abstract

This paper assessed gender inequality in household resources, particularly land ownership, division of labour and decision making as regards climate change adaptation strategies for household food security. The results show that gender inequality exists among the pastoralists in terms of household division of labour, ownership of resources and decision-making such that women do not control important productive resources such as land and livestock which make them more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and less able to adapt to it. The pastoralists use various adaptation strategies including crop farming, selling animals, migration and fencing reserve pasture. The paper concludes that gender inequality renders women more vulnerable to climate change impact because most adaptation activities that have immediate effect on food security are done by women and the burden to feed the household has shifted more to women and exacerbating food insecurity. The paper recommends that in addition to spontaneous climate change adaptation strategies used by the pastoralist the government should provide planned adaptations such as early warning systems, rainwater harvesting and the use of drought-resistant crops because many pastoralists have adopted crop farming as one of their climate change adaptations in ensuring food security. Also, sectoral policies and particularly land policy should be gender sensitive with clear strategies to address inequalities in the household division of labour, decision-making and ownership of resources especially land so as to lessen women’s vulnerability to climate change impact and food insecurity.