Abstract
Emerging and on-going research indicates that vulnerabilities to impacts of climate change are gendered. Still, policy approaches aimed at strengthening local communities’ adaptive capacity largely fail to recognize the gendered nature of everyday realities and experiences. This paper interrogates some of the emerging evidence in selected semi-arid countries of Africa and Asia from a gender perspective, using water scarcity as an illustrative example. It emphasizes the importance of moving beyond the counting of numbers of men and women to unpacking relations of power, of inclusion and exclusion in decision-making, and challenging cultural beliefs that have denied equal opportunities and rights to differently positioned people, especially those at the bottom of economic and social hierarchies. Such an approach would make policy and practice more relevant to people’s differentiated needs and responses.
Highlights
Emerging research indicates that vulnerabilities related to climate change and its impacts on communities are gendered (Dankelman et al, 2008; MacGregor, 2010; Babugura, 2010; Goh, 2012; Moosa and Tuana, 2014, Morchain et al, 2015)
The IPCC fifth assessment report has acknowledged the overlapping and intersecting nature of risks – geophysical, agro-ecological and socioeconomic, when it states with ‘very high confidence’ that differences in vulnerability and exposure arising from non-climatic factors shape differential risks to climate change (Field et al, 2014)
For instance, do differences in household structures and conjugal relations, the divisions of labour, and rights and responsibilities embedded therein, shape adaptation? What are the trade-offs involved in the choices people make – between short-term coping and longer-term adaptation, between nurturing social relations of reciprocity and interdependence and seeking individual welfare? This paper builds on a regional diagnostic analysis of vulnerability and adaptation to climate change in semi-arid regions (SARs) across Africa and Asia conducted by the ASSAR (Adaptation at Scale in Semi-Arid Regions)1 project, along with preliminary field observations, to explore some of these puzzles
Summary
Emerging research indicates that vulnerabilities related to climate change and its impacts on communities are gendered (Dankelman et al, 2008; MacGregor, 2010; Babugura, 2010; Goh, 2012; Moosa and Tuana, 2014, Morchain et al, 2015). Developing a broad-based understanding of gendered vulnerability as emerging from poverty and social discrimination, and socio-cultural practices in different political, geographical and historical settings, apart from climatic variability and environmental /natural risks (Blaikie et al, 1994, Few, 2007), is central to understanding people’s capacities to cope with and adapt to change. Such understanding of the different adaptive strategies used by men and women of different classes and social groups to secure their livelihoods, both in the short and medium term (Shipton, 1990), is still insufficient. For instance, do differences in household structures and conjugal relations, the divisions of labour, and rights and responsibilities embedded therein, shape adaptation? What are the trade-offs involved in the choices people make – between short-term coping and longer-term adaptation, between nurturing social relations of reciprocity and interdependence and seeking individual welfare? This paper builds on a regional diagnostic analysis of vulnerability and adaptation to climate change in semi-arid regions (SARs) across Africa and Asia conducted by the ASSAR (Adaptation at Scale in Semi-Arid Regions) project, along with preliminary field observations, to explore some of these puzzles
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