Paper Short Abstract:

Climate change is a socio-cultural issue disproportionately impacting women due to gendered roles, resource gaps, and limited decision-making power. This study highlights the need for gender-sensitive policies to ensure equitable resources, foster resilience, and build inclusive, sustainable solutio

Paper Abstract:

Climate change is not only an environmental issue but also a socio-cultural phenomenon that disproportionately impacts people based on their social position, age, gender, disability, and location. Among these factors, gender plays a significant role in determining vulnerability and resilience to climate impacts. Existing gender gaps are reinforced by societal norms and structures, influencing the division of labor, access to resources, and adaptive capacities. Women and men often experience the effects of climate change differently due to entrenched gender roles, which dictate responsibilities in households, agriculture, and natural resource management. These roles often leave women with fewer assets, limited access to financial and technical resources, and reduced decision-making power. Additionally, gendered living choices and occupational segregation exacerbate the inequalities, making women disproportionately vulnerable during climate-induced crises, such as droughts, floods, and food insecurity.

Despite these realities, gender dynamics are often overlooked in climate policy and adaptation planning. Inclusive climate policies must recognize and address these disparities by integrating gender-sensitive approaches. This includes ensuring equitable access to resources, supporting women’s leadership in decision-making, and transforming discriminatory social norms. By adopting gender-responsive strategies, policymakers can enhance the effectiveness and equity of climate adaptation and mitigation efforts, fostering resilience among vulnerable populations. Recognizing climate change as a gendered socio-cultural issue is crucial for building sustainable and inclusive solutions that leave no one behind

Paper Short Abstract:

We explore the daily lives of social groups around a hydro-agricultural dam in Burkina Faso designed to ensure the continuity of agro-pastoral activities. We look at the invisible barriers that prevent women and men from benefiting equally from the resources they need to adapt to climate change.

Paper Abstract:

In response to droughts induced by climate changes, Burkina Faso has turned to hydro-agricultural dams as a key strategy in its adaptation mechanism. However, the implementation of this strategy requires environmental modifications that have an impact on the everyday practices of riverside communities. The aim of this research is to explore the socio-economic and health consequences of these changes on the daily lives of the women, men and young people living near the Soum dam. To achieve this, we conducted ethnographic research in communities around the Soum dam and conducted semi-structured interviews (individual and focus group) and informal conversations. We also followed a number of households over a long period. This research shows that new hydro-agricultural development projects are reinventing traditional rights of access to agricultural land, sometimes worsening the conditions of women and young people. Women no longer have access to plots of land that used to sustain their economy. They are further excluded by the new technological requirements of irrigated production. Furthermore, the destruction and non-reinstallation of pre-existing basic social infrastructure such as boreholes is making women's conditions even more precarious. In this context, their health and that of their children is severely tested. In view of these results, we conclude that the construction of hydro-agricultural dams like the Soum dam, without considering the needs of specific groups, cannot make adaptation to climate change effective. In the context of the Soum dam, we see a reinvention of the wheel, where women's living conditions are becoming even more precarious.

Paper Short Abstract:

This paper explores severe disconnects that exist between policy, strategy and on-the-ground implementation of climate change policy in Tanzania, through the voices of diverse interlocutors and with focus on gender transformative climate change adaptation.

Paper Abstract:

It is well established that women and men of different ages and life circumstances, experience climate change differently. Exposure, vulnerability, and adaptive capacity is gendered in contextually specific ways with consequences for livelihoods, and physical and mental health. In Tanzania, as elsewhere, poor women with low educational levels are particularly subjected to discrimination in access to resources, financing-opportunities, employment, training, extension services, and land-rights. Women may have limited decision-making power in the household and community and are often overlooked by governing institutions.

The research project, Himili Pamoja focus on the gendered nature of existing and tentative climate change adaptation processes at household- and district authority levels. National and local authorities shoulder the task of implementing climate change policies and promoting climate change adaptation to reduce vulnerability. District extension officers, often referred to as street-level bureaucrats, are potential agents of change and also important co-producers of climate change adaptation strategies in dialogue with other local stakeholders. However, their role is constrained by lack of adequate funding to promote climate change adaptation, and also by conflicting local interests and priorities. In addition, technical knowledge and capacity to interact, guide and support is hampered. These central disconnects mentioned above stalls positive change and sidelines investments in gender transformative development. This paper presents voices of diverse interlocutors in communities and district offices, living with and navigating within stalled and tentative climate change adaptation-processes.