Gender-responsive rural climate services: a review of the literature

Abstract

This review assesses the empirical knowledge base on gender-based differences in access, use and benefits from rural climate services to analyse gender equality challenges and identify pathways for making climate services more responsive to the needs of rural women and men. While existing research is limited, the review identifies key gender-related factors and processes that influence inequalities in access and use. Differential access to group processes and to Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) can significantly limit women's access to weather and climate information. Moreover, socio-cultural norms that define women's and men's labour roles can also influence the resources and decisions under women's and men's control, affecting their differing climate information needs and demand. Ways forward suggested by the literature concern inclusion of women's groups and networks in communication channels and development of ICTs that respond to women's preferences. Furthermore, meeting women's climate information needs and pursuing crosssectoral collaboration will be important to enhance action on climate information. Research opportunities include analyses of the potential for women's and mixed-gender groups to enhance women's access to climate information; evaluation of the communication processes that improve women's understanding of climate information; and further connection with the body of knowledge on intra-household decision-making processes.

Understanding gender differences in availability, accessibility and use of climate information among smallholder farmers in Malawi

“…The understanding of access to, and use of, weather and climate information in African contexts are emerging, but studies in Malawi are few, scattered, and data is rarely disaggregated on the basis of gender (e.g. Gumucio et al, 2019;Mulwa et al, 2017). The availability, present and preferred means of accessing climate information, as well as how the information is used and perceived among smallholder farmers, remains largely underexplored in Malawi (Gumucio et al, 2019;Vaughan et al, 2019).…”

Multi-Actors' Co-Implementation of Climate-Smart Village Approach in West Africa: Achievements and Lessons Learnt

“…This effort should focus on crop suitability areas and CSA management practices (Schroth et al, 2016;Egbebiyi et al, 2019;M'Bo et al, 2019;Mechiche-Alami and Abdi, 2020). Climatesmart agriculture is not a silver bullet; rather, what constitutes CSA for any given area is anchored in a thorough analysis of the unique socioeconomic and biophysical vulnerabilities of that region, including gender-responsive solutions (Carr et al, 2020;Gumucio et al, 2020). Identification of potential practices followed by community co-testing for best fit to their situations and needs enhances the success of CSA (Bayala et al, 2016;M'Bo et al, 2019).…”

Games and Fieldwork in Agriculture: A Systematic Review of the 21st Century in Economics and Social Science

“…Most games suffered in establishing whether their findings uncovered causal effects for the population and the specific context being studied-that is, internal validity-as well as whether game behavior reflected real-world decision making in other contexts-that is, external validity. In addition, a significant portion of the experiments showed potential recruitment biases with little participation by rural women who are usually excluded from social gatherings and activities [4,67]. Furthermore, spatial and temporal limitations on the scope of results were evident, as the games we surveyed were predominately one-time interventions with no repetition, and no power tests were performed to define the optimal sample size.…”