A gender approach to understanding the differentiated impact of barriers to adaptation: responses to climate change in rural Ethiopia

Abstract

While adaptation has received a fair amount of attention in the climate change debate, barriers to adaptation are the focus of a more specific, recent discussion. In this discussion, such barriers are generally treated as having a uniform, negative impact on all actors. However, we argue that the precise nature and impact of such barriers on different actors has so far been largely overlooked. Our study of two drought-prone communities in rural Ethiopia sets out to examine how female-and male-headed households adapt to climate change, particularly focusing on how a variety of barriers influence the choice of adaptation measures to varying extents. To this purpose, we built a conceptual framework based on the Sustainable Livelihood Approach. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with male-and female-headed households, community leaders and local extension workers. Our findings suggest that gender-based differences in the choice of adaptation measures at the household level are driven by cultural, social, financial and institutional barriers. Barriers to adaptation-particularly when interacting-have a differentiated impact upon different actors. This outcome hints at the need for donors and policymakers to develop intervention strategies that are sensitive to this fact.

Environmental change, adaptation strategies and the relevance of migration in Sub-Saharan drylands

“…Black et al 2011, Murphy 2015. In general, barriers to adaptation are often not clearly defined in the academic literature, highly context-dependent, interconnected and have a differentiated effect on different actors, such as male-and female-headed households (Biesbroek et al 2013, Yila and Resurreccion 2014, Mersha and Laerhoven 2016. Moreover, scientific knowledge on how adaptation barriers impact specific adaptation choices, such as migration, is still limited.…”

Differential livelihood adaptation to social-ecological change in coastal Bangladesh

“…(Islam et al 2014), institutional (Quinn et al 2011) and psychological (Gifford 2011;Grothmann and Patt 2005). However, studies in this genre have generally considered barriers as having a uniform adverse effect on all actors, largely overlooking the particular nature and impact of such barriers on different actors (Mersha and Van Laerhoven 2016). There is a greater need to study the diverse influences of barriers on different social groups, stratified by wealth status, gender, ethnicity or other demographic factors.…”

Uniting forest and livelihood outcomes? Analyzing external actor interventions in sustainable livelihoods in a community forest management context

“…The types of institutions being referred to by SLA literature are socio-cultural and political processes. For example, gender institutions appear to influence access to social capitals (Westermann et al 2005) and climate adaptation strategies (Mersha and Van Laerhoven 2016). We refer to the institutions discussed in the SLA literature as community institutions to distinguish them from the forest institutions discussed in the CPR literature.…”

“…As discussed in 2.1.2, without addressing the institutional arrangements that are at the root of inequality, interventions could continue to have a differentiated effect [for example along gender lines, as shown by Mersha and Van Laerhoven (2016)]. Therefore, many scholars have argued that attention to institutions could help to avoid skewed participation in service provision activities and that as such the benefits of participation would be more widely spread and sustained (Mansuri and Rao 2013;Ingram et al 2015).…”