A framework to understand gender and structural vulnerability to climate change in the ganges river basin: Lessons from Bangladesh, India and Nepal - INRAE - Institut national de recherche pour l’agriculture, l’alimentation et l’environnement Accéder directement au contenu
Rapport Année : 2014

A framework to understand gender and structural vulnerability to climate change in the ganges river basin: Lessons from Bangladesh, India and Nepal

Résumé

As the reality of climate change becomes accepted in the scientific community, it is critical to continue to understand its impact on the ground, particularly for communities dependent on agriculture and natural resources. To do so, the analysis of vulnerability – in other words, the capacity of communities to cope with the effects of change – is critical. An extension of this is the analysis of social structures, and how they shape patterns of vulnerability and the capacity for individuals or groups to adapt. This review presents a framework for understanding structural vulnerability to climate change in the Ganges River Basin countries–Nepal, India and Bangladesh – with a focus on the role of gender in shaping vulnerability. This paper reviews the extensive academic and ‘gray’ literature from the region to identify a set of key economic and social inequalities which shape how men and women are differently affected by climate change and their capacity to adapt. The impact of climate change in the Ganges River Basin is complex. With regard to agriculture, the most notable stress is the increased unpredictability of weather patterns. This includes extreme weather events such as droughts, floods and cyclones, not to mention more subtle changes related to the onset of the monsoon and the frequency of rainfall. An increase in temperature extremes is also a notable concern, affecting both winter and summer cropping. The impact has locally specific manifestations according to the geography. For example, falling water tables exacerbated by droughts is a concern in some parts of the Gangetic Plains; extreme events such as flooding or cyclones can lead to an increase in saline intrusion in the Ganges Delta, while they can cause more frequent landslides or other mass movements in the Himalayas. With regard to ‘vulnerability’ in the context of climatic stress, this paper takes a broadly social constructivist approach. In other words, vulnerability is not considered as a consequence of natural hazards alone. Instead, it is related to one’s resilience and capacity to cope with, or adapt to, the context of natural hazards, a process which is intricately connected to social structures such as gender, class, caste and ethnicity. A first form of ‘gendered’ vulnerability to climate change relates to labor. In a region with highly inequitable gender division of labor, the workload of women can be increased by climate change. Women often play an important role in natural resource-based livelihood activities which fall within the sphere of reproduction such as the collection of fuelwood and water. Ecological changes such as salinity intrusion or changes in groundwater availability can force women to travel longer distances. There is often a class dimension, whereby women from wealthier households have their own resources such as tube wells in their homesteads, and thus their burden is less. A second reason why the gender division of labor is important for vulnerability is that women and men often have separate control over different income sources. If climate change undermines a particular livelihood activity, this may differentially impact men’s or women’s individual incomes. This impacts women in South Asia in particular, as the personal income they can control is often more limited than that of men. Gender norms which restrict their involvement in the public sphere in activities such as labor and trade mean that agriculture and natural resource-based livelihood activities often represent the primary sources of personal cash income. These activities are highly vulnerable to climate change. Gendered vulnerability can also emerge from more complex processes such as male out- migration, which is often a primary response to climate stress on agriculture for the most marginal cultivators. While the seasonal or permanent migration of male household members can increase women’s control over income and household affairs, it can also increase their vulnerability to shocks. For example, women-headed households that have increased following male out-migration are viii particularly vulnerable to natural disasters such as floods, with the loss of family support networks. Similarly, their workload is often increased as they have to take on responsibilities of former male labor on the farm, particularly in poorer households that cannot afford to hire outside laborers. Climate change not only puts women under increased economic stress, but can also affect their welfare in other more complex ways. For example, women are more likely than their male counterparts to suffer in the period following natural disasters when, often, a larger number of females than males face fatalities. This can occur for multiple reasons including the fact that women often leave the homestead last, have less access to information and warnings, or face restrictions on entering public storm shelters. Similarly, during food crises which follow natural disasters, women often forgo an adequate diet to ensure that children and other family members remain well fed. The economic stress brought about by climate change and associated natural disasters has also been shown to increase cases of violence against women. This includes an increase in the trafficking of girls, as well as an increase in violence and harassment of women brought about by increased competition for resources both within the household, and between households. Another set of questions this review addresses relates to the capacity for households and individuals to adapt to climate change. In particular, women’s capacity to adapt to climate stress has been shown to be more limited than men’s, for multiple complex reasons. In South Asia, women face numerous legal and cultural barriers in owning or inheriting property. The tendency for land to be registered in the male name restricts women’s bargaining power in the sale of the produce of their land, and women-owned holdings are often too small for many productivity- enhancing or climate-smart technologies. Lack of land also restricts women’s access to agricultural services (for which landownership papers are required), and renders them more dependent upon common-property-resource-dependent activities, such as livestock-rearing, which are often highly vulnerable to climate stress. A related challenge for women’s adaptation to climate change is accessing finance, lower levels of education, and more restricted social networks and access to markets, all of which restrict their capacity to diversify into new livelihood activities. There are numerous state programs aimed at facilitating climate change adaptation at a local level including those oriented at disaster preparedness and improving the resilience of agriculture. However, the capacity of women to benefit from state resources or to contribute to local-level decision making is often limited. Even in the context of equal rights on paper, women often face discrimination due to entrenched cultural norms when policies are implemented. At the same time, national-level policies and practices often fail to account for the needs of women or value women’s agroecological knowledge. Policy interventions to facilitate equitable climate change adaptation for both men and women include ensuring women’s rights to land, making more effective use of microfinance through a more integrated approach. Other proposals include the promotion of collective action and cooperative structures amongst women, and the integration of indigenous knowledge into programs for adaptation to climate change. Underlying this is a need for bottom-up climate change adaptation planning, which understands local needs and knowledge, including those of both men and women. Programs and policies for adaptation of climate change will also be more effective if the roles of local institutions which provide incentives for collective action are better understood. It is also clear that gendered vulnerability to climate change intersects class inequalities. Addressing structural poverty at a much broader level clearly emerges as being a central condition for successful adaptation and mitigation, particularly given that women from poorer households are the most vulnerable to climate change. There is also a need for strong enabling policies and institutional mechanisms that embed a commitment to tackle gender equality across society. Legal and societal commitments to gender equality are essential so that poor women, their families and their communities are given the capacity to adapt to the adverse impact of climate change.

Dates et versions

hal-02797775 , version 1 (05-06-2020)

Identifiants

Citer

Fraser Sugden, Sanjiv de Silva, Floriane Clement, Niki Maskey-Amatya, Vidya Ramesh, et al.. A framework to understand gender and structural vulnerability to climate change in the ganges river basin: Lessons from Bangladesh, India and Nepal. 2014. ⟨hal-02797775⟩
8 Consultations
0 Téléchargements

Altmetric

Partager

Gmail Facebook X LinkedIn More