There is growing concern about sustainable and equitable adaptation in climate change hotspots, commonly understood as locations that concentrate high climatic variability, societal vulnerability, and negative impacts on livelihood systems. Emphasizing gender within these debates highlights how demographic, socio-economic and agro-ecological contexts mediate the experiences and outcomes of climate change. Drawing on data from 25 qualitative case studies across three hotspots in Africa and Asia, analysed using Qualitative Comparative Analysis, we show how and in what ways women's agency, or the ability to make meaningful choices and strategic decisions, contributes to adaptation responses. We find that environmental stress is a key depressor of women's agency even when household structures and social norms are supportive, or legal entitlements available. These findings have implications for the effective implementation of multilateral agreements such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction, and the Sustainable Development Goals.Sustainable, equitable, and effective adaptation is critical in climate change hotspots, locations where climatic shifts, social structures, and livelihood sensitivity converge to exacerbate vulnerability 1,2 . Entrenched social structures create power relations that shape women's and men's experiences of vulnerability through access to resources, divisions of work, and cultural norms around mobility and decision-making, all of which determine adaptive capacity 6,10-21 . Involving trade-offs at every level 12,[22][23][24] , these contextual factors not only shape vulnerabilities but also create possibilities for adaptation 25 .When examining gendered vulnerability and the way in which it is manifest in unequal patriarchal systems, women's agency has emerged as key to realising adaptive capacity, but remains understudied 11 . Drawing on feminist arguments to move beyond simplistic framings of actors in terms of active or passive, victims or perpetrators 7,26,27 , we conceptualise agency as the ability to make meaningful choices and strategic decisions 28 . It can take multiple forms, from bargaining and negotiation to subversion and resistance 29 , varying across institutional sites and scales, and drawing differentially on available material or social resources 28 . Institutions, ranging from the micro (household) and meso (community) level, to the more macro-levels of markets and states 30 , interact and intersect with each other, often intensifying or reproducing inequalities. The rules and norms they establish, can be formal or informal, complementary or competing 31 , giving specific meaning to particular activities, resources and relationships. In the context of climate action, while some research explores the role of social capital, especially women's groups, for instance, in supporting women's agency 32,33 , a nuanced institutional analysis, linking women's agency and its implications for adaptive capacity remains miss...

Rural livelihoods in semi-arid Pakistan are increasingly exposed to climate impacts such as rising temperatures, erratic rainfalls and more intense and frequent climate-related extreme events. This is introducing new risks to the already vulnerable and marginalised societies that lack development and have high poverty rates. This study uses the IPCC Livelihood Vulnerability Index (LVI) approach to analyse the determinants of household livelihood vulnerability defining vulnerability in terms of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity. It also determines various adaptation responses that farmers apply and elucidates the reasons why some farmers choose not to adapt to climate change. It focuses on three semi-arid districts in Pakistan (Faisalabad, D.G. Khan and Mardan) and uses a sample of 150 rural agricultural households. As per the LVI scores, D.G. Khan is the most vulnerable district to climate change impacts, followed by Mardan and Faisalabad, respectively. Results show that (a lack of) adaptive capacity plays quite an important role in shaping households' livelihood vulnerability for any given degree of exposure and sensitivity. Besides lower exposure and sensitivity to climate change, extremely low levels of adaptive capacity make Mardan more vulnerable to climate change compared to Faisalabad. The paper argues on people-centric development for rural areas through strengthening of agriculture sector as well as providing rural household opportunities for off-farm livelihoods.

Non-technical abstract Globally, semi-arid lands (SALs) are home to approximately one billion people, including some of the poorest and least food secure. These regions will be among the hardest hit by the impacts of climate change. This article urges governments and their development partners to put SAL inhabitants and their activities at the heart of efforts to support adaptation and climate resilient development, identifying opportunities to capitalize on the knowledge, institutions, resources and practices of SAL populations in adaptation action.

No abstract

This paper analyzes the multi-dimensional approach through which the Pakistani state envisages, cultivates and practices state-diaspora relations. It examines the bureaucratic initiatives and official narratives to understand how the state extends its reach across its borders to bring the overseas population into its domain to fulfil the national agendas. The paper further argues that the statediaspora relations in Pakistan are being developed through two main shifts: a) the way the state moulds its own identity in relation to the diaspora, and b) the way the state attempts to shape or create a diasporic identity for the overseas population. The paper adopts the analytical lens of why, who and how, to describe the motivations behind diaspora engagement, the discrepancies created between different diaspora groups and modes of engagement with these groups. From a neoliberal governmentality optic, these processes explain how the Pakistani state involves the diaspora members as partners in development, politics and governance and also treats them as subjects of governance and surveillance through identification and categorisation. It concludes that the Pakistani state's enhanced interest in diaspora engagement is to articulate nationhood in a transnational setting to reconfigure state hegemony in a globalised context.