Equity, empowerment and gender relations: A literature review of special relevance for climate-smart agriculture programming
This brief (PDF), by CCAFS, summarizes the results of a literature review on equity, empowerment and gender relations for climate-smart agriculture (CSA) programming. The impacts of climate change are hitting all walks of life. These impacts, however, vary between women and men. Women make up most of the world’s poor sector. They rely more on natural resources, earn less and are more likely to become economically dependent than men. As a results, they suffer more from the undue impacts of natural disasters, severe weather events and climate change. The review found out that a wider and more equitable gender sensitivity is now seen amongst policy makers and local government, with a corresponding enhanced and out-scaled uptake on CSA. The issue of how climate-smart agriculture can advance equity and empowerment of women and their inclusion in disaster and climate adaptation programs could be addressed via community-level research studies (i.e., the engagement of farm women in the design, management, and implementation of enterprises in homesteads and family farms). The increased control of production assets by women and a responsibility (value chain-oriented) for establishing and managing links with markets is by itself empowering. Improved access to resources, information, markets and decision-making opportunities of women will bring them on par with men as equal partners in climate change and disaster risk reduction efforts. Applying social learning improved the adaptive capacities of women. The research impacts/influences on the institutional infrastructure (at community and local government level) will contribute to improved equity, economic empowerment and social inclusion of farm women and a future generation of young girls/women in rural communities.