Climate Change and Gender in Africa: A Review of Impact and Gender-Responsive Solutions

Abstract

Climate change affects livelihoods and wellbeing. Women and men may experience the impacts of climate change differently. But climate change and its associated impacts affect women negatively. A review was done on peer-reviewed literature related to the impact of climate change on gender in Africa. While there is an abundance of credible scientific evidence on the impacts of climate change, there is a dearth of reliable disaggregated data and evidence on the impact of climate change on women. The review shows that climate change affects women more negatively compared to men in five impact areas: (i) agricultural production; (ii) food and nutrition security; (iii) health; (iv) water and energy; (v) climate-related disaster, migration, and conflict. The lack of gender-disaggregated data undermines efforts to design gender-responsive interventions to enable women to cope with and adapt to climate change impacts. While there is no consensus on what constitutes gender-responsive solutions to climate vulnerability and risk, the paper provides some priority action areas to stimulate debate and hopefully consensus for a starting point for deeper engagement of women's participation and motivating investments in creating frameworks for accountability for measurable gender-differentiated outcomes. Efforts to design and deploy gender-responsive solutions to climate change impact must take a holistic, asset-based approach, which meaningfully seeks to identify dominant causal mechanisms and develops context policy and institutional options to address interlocking asset or capital dis-endowments.

Interlinkages between Climate Change and Food Systems: The Impact on Child Malnutrition—Narrative Review

“…Climate change may influence food production and nutrition security due to its impact on the agro-ecosystem [ 37 ]. Effects on quantity, quality, access to, and affordability of foods from agricultural, fishery, and livestock sectors exacerbate nutrient deficiencies, chronic undernutrition, and vulnerability among the most food-insecure population groups [ 4 , 7 , 38 ]. Furthermore, current changes in climate are influenced by food systems and modern consumption patterns.…”

A combined cognitive and spatial model to map and understand climate-induced migration

“…Women often lack equitable access to land, credit, financial assets, information, and agricultural technologies, and their ability to diversify options to cope with the adverse impacts of climate change (Ratha et al, 2011). Therefore, our results can contribute to the debate and formulate connections between the dynamics of climate risks and gender-differentiated impacts and the development of gender-differentiated asset or capital poverty traps that may affect women more and thus promote differentiated ideas of migration factors (Awiti, 2022;Farbotko et al, 2020;Parsons, 2019;Parsons & Nielsen, 2021).…”

“…Our analysis also reported significant differences in the factors that may promote migration between men and women. Studies indicate that women migrate more for environmental factors than men (Awiti, 2022;Bleeker et al, 2021;Evertsen & van der Geest, 2020). It has also been found that the effect of crop failure tends to reduce household mobility, and indirect exposure increases it in women.…”

Understanding Needs and Potentials for Gender-Balanced Empowerment and Leadership in Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation in Africa

“…When identifying the areas in which women have become more empowered, the majority of respondents named climate change adaptation, resilience, mitigation, impacts, and conservation (Figure 8). Considering the extent of African women's vulnerability to climate change stressors [119], the named areas represent key targets for relevant measures to be applied. The obtained results are not only expected to significantly reduce vulnerability and improve livelihood, but also to have positive impacts on other climate change and gender-related areas.…”