Unpacking the Nexus Between Gender and Climate Change Adaptation. The case of Smallholder Agriculture in North-eastern Ethiopia

The current body of scholarship informs that climate change adaptation is a gendered process where men (or specific group of men) and women (or specific group of women) have different adaptation options and choices and thereby they have different effectiveness. However, the underlying structural and institutional factors within a given context tend to be overpassed by simply highlighting women as highly vulnerable groups that need to be targeted by adaptation responses. Thus, this dissertation deals with the nexus of gender and climate change adaptation in smallholder agriculture context using a gender relational lens. The empirical bases of the dissertation are two rural districts of Northeastern Ethiopia, namely, Raya Azebo and Kobo, which have been experiencing drought and climate extremes. Using a case study approach, data were gathered from male and female smallholder farmers, policy actors, government officials at national, regional and local levels, site agriculture and extension workers, and representatives of civic society. The dissertation raises four main research questions that are deals in four empirical chapters. The first empirical chapter identify the adaptation options of male and female smallholders and the type and nature of barriers they encounter. In this chapter, the study contributes to our understanding about barriers. It states that not only male and female smallholders encounter different barriers but also, they experience the same barriers differently. The second empirical chapter examines the interplay between government -sponsored planned adaptation intervention and smallholders’ autonomous adaptation. The finding indicates that planned adaptation intervention has differentiated effects following gender and class lines mainly due to their limited attention to underlying structural and institutional factors and the tendency to homogenise the adapting community and undermine their autonomous adaptation. Moreover, this chapter indicates that how the effects of planned adaptation are presents are not gender neutral and apolitical. The third empirical chapter examines the adaptation policy making arena as a gender contested space to explain the reasons for gender neutral construction of adaptation policy, which include limited participation of actors with gender interest, absence of well-crafted gender agenda, gendered organisational arrangements and informal institutions and the dominance of natural science discourses. Drawing identified gender void from ongoing adaptation responses- autonomous, planned adaptation policy making and implementation, the fourth empirical chapter turns the discussion to possible intervention that addresses gendered dimension of adaptation arguing for gender-responsive transformative adaptation. Although transformative adaptation has become emerging debate in climate change to overcome shortcoming of incremental adaptation, they tend to focus on technological innovation and sectoral basis. However, to tackle the gender dimension of adaptation, transformative interventions need to focus on broader structural and institutional factors where asymmetric gender relations remain integral part.