CARE Says Gender Must be Included in Climate Change Plans by World’s Poorest Countries
GENEVA (8 March, 2008) – In poor communities around the world, natural disasters disproportionately affect women. When disasters strike, women typically have less cash savings, lower levels of education and smaller social networks to draw upon than men. Climate change will likely increase the frequency and intensity of natural disasters, worsening the inequalities between men and women as a result. These inequities must be addressed in the plans to adapt to climate change that are being prepared by the world’s poorest countries.
In the wake of the destruction caused by Hurricane Ivan in Madagascar, the flooding of the Zambezi River in Zambia and a looming drought in the Horn of Africa, it is increasingly evident that women bear the brunt of many natural disasters.
Forty-eight-year-old Fira Alphonsine is the sole provider for her family of six in Mahasoa village, which lies in the clove producing region of Analajirofo, Madagascar. She spoke of a long period of no rain prior to Hurricane Ivan and of a ruined rice harvest as a consequence of the strong winds. The family also lost the season’s cassava crop.
“There is little to salvage from this harvest because lack of rain had already damaged it affected the output and the timing for transplanting coincided with the storm,” she explained to CARE staff coordinating relief efforts for hurricane survivors. Alphonsine and her family are now living in a crowded camp for people displaced by the hurricane. Her own health is deteriorating but she cannot afford to buy medicines and worries about how to feed her family.
Sadly, plans by the world’s poorest countries to cope with climate change consistently neglect to look at how natural disasters impact different social groups. Consequently, they also neglect how different social groups will be able to adapt to longer-term climate change. All countries classified as “least developed,” under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, are required to have these plans, called National Adaptation Plans of Actions.
These plans must make it a priority to help the most vulnerable social groups adapt to extreme weather conditions. This means recognizing the diversity within a country more broadly, and specifically addressing gender inequity.
“As governments and agencies prepare their responses to climate change, there must be an understanding that they cannot take a one-size-fits-all approach,” says Dr. Charles Ehrhart, Climate Change Coordinator for CARE International. “The impact of climate change will be distributed differently among regions, generations, income groups, occupations and gender. Men and women have different capacities to adapt to climate change and consequently they will be affected in different ways.”
In the wake of natural disasters the immediate concern is food relief and safe water supplies. However, the long-term effects of calamities are felt for years.
For example, Typhoon Damrey hit the east coast of Vietnam in 2005, yet women farmers are still feeling its effects three years later. The salt content of the land has increased significantly, making it impossible to grow crops and have productive harvests. Women in the area have few other opportunities to earn a living and many have migrated south in search of jobs.
CARE is helping the local community of Hau Loc to recover from the typhoon’s effects through the Community-based Mangrove Reforestation and Management Project. Mangrove forests provide protection from storms as well as significant environmental benefits, including controlling erosion and nurturing fisheries. Mangrove forests can also be a potential source of food and income. The project supports the planting of approximately 370 acres (150 hectares) of new mangroves in the area and aims to develop local capacity for the ongoing maintenance and management of the 741 acres (300 hectares) of established mangrove forests.
Women in Hau Loc have traditionally played a part in disaster recovery by taking care of children, moving property to safe places, providing food for family members, and cleaning and repairing homes after floods recede. Women are also responsible for maintaining rice fields, and collecting fish, shrimp, and other species in the tidal areas.
The Mangrove Project has helped to support them in fulfilling these roles and reducing their vulnerability through by providing water collection devices, food, support and seeds. The project has also been successful in involving women in meetings and workshops and other project activities, helping to improve their participation in community decision making. For many participants, this is the first time they have had the opportunity to have a voice in community discussions and provide input and ideas to plans.
“Interventions that strengthen women’s capacity to adapt to climate variability and change are crucial,” added Dr. Ehrhart. “However, this approach is only a step in the right direction. It must be complemented by redoubled efforts to challenge and change entrenched socio-economic inequities and discrimination.”
When environmental changes occur, women and men will be affected differently because of their culturally assigned rights, roles and responsibilities. Girls will likely be the first ones to be pulled out of school when household livelihoods become stressed by the impacts of climate change. Unequal power relations and access to assets prevent women and girls from adapting successfully to the effects of climate change.
Women’s workloads often grow bigger when there are poor harvests and when the men in the family migrate in search of work, increasing a woman’s household and farming chores, including time spent looking for water and fuel wood.
In order to assess the priority issues of highly vulnerable groups at the grassroots level, including women, CARE has recently developed a Climate Vulnerability and Capacity Assessment tool.
“By working closely with local authorities, community-based organizations and government agencies, we are able to analyze climate risks for women, identify appropriate measures to adapt to climate change, and integrate this knowledge into planning and decision-making ” says Angie Dazé, CARE’s Climate Change Coordinator for Southern and West Africa.
For more information, please contact:
Bill Dowell, CARE International, Geneva, [email protected]
About CARE: Founded in 1945 with the creation of the CARE Package, CARE is a leading humanitarian organization fighting global poverty. CARE has more than six decades of experience delivering emergency aid during times of crisis. Our emergency responses focus on the needs of the most vulnerable populations, particularly girls and women. Women and girls are at the heart of CARE’s emergency relief efforts because our experience shows that their gains translate into benefits for families and communities.