Climate change has adversely impacted female-headed households’ livelihoods to a greater degree than male-headed households.

A new report from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations- The unjust climate: Measuring the impact of climate change on the poor, women, and youth – demonstrates how climate stressors widen the income gap among rural people along the lines of class, gender, and age.

The Unjust Climate report highlights a stark reality: each year in low and middle-income countries (LMICs), female heads of households in rural areas suffer significantly greater financial losses than men. On average, female-headed households lose 8% more of their income due to heat stress and 3% more due to floods compared to male-headed households.

If the average temperatures were to increase by just 1°C, these women would face a staggering 34% greater loss in their total incomes compared to men. Considering the significant existing differences in agricultural productivity and wages between women and men, the study suggests that if not addressed, climate change will greatly widen these gaps in the years ahead.

It is estimated that only 1.7 percent of tracked climate financing in 2017/18 reached small scale producers. Moreover, rural people and their climate vulnerabilities are barely visible in national climate policies. For example, new analysis included in this report shows that in the nationally determined contributions and national adaptation plans of the 24 countries analysed, only 6 percent of the 4 164 climate actions proposed mention women, while less than 1 percent of actions address poor people and 6 percent refer to farmers in rural communities.

The Unjust Climate

FAO’s Global Roadmap for Achieving SDG 2 without breaching the 1.5 °C threshold, established that gender inequalities, climate actions and nutrition are simultaneous considerations, and actions must encompass these dimensions and promote inclusivity for women, youth and Indigenous Peoples.

●In an average year, poor households lose 4.4% of their total income due to floods relative to better-off households.

●Rising temperatures increase poor households’ dependency on climate-sensitive agriculture relative to that of non-poor households. A 1° C increase in average temperatures leads to a 53% increase in the farm incomes of poor households and a 33% decrease in their off-farm incomes, relative to non-poor households.

●Women plot managers are as capable as men to adopt climate-adaptive agricultural practices, but often lose more income and off-farm opportunities when exposed to extreme weather events. Each day of extreme high temperature reduces the total value of crops produced by women farmers by 3% relative to men.

●In an average year, households headed by young people see their total incomes increase by 3%t due to floods, and by 6% because of heat stress, relative to older households.

●Heat stresses cause young rural households in low- and middle-income countries to increase their annual off-farm income by $47 billion relative to that of other households.

●Extreme temperatures push children to increase their weekly working time by 49 minutes relative to prime-aged adults, mostly in the off-farm sector, closely mirroring the increase in the work burden of women.

East Africa Senior Adviser for the World Food Programme (WFP), Sibi Lawson-Marriott, said:

“Women and girls are bearing the brunt of the climate crisis. We’re supporting them in mitigating the impacts through our advocating and messaging, our programme design, in how we direct our resources, and by working with the women in their communities.”

In East Africa, where deadly floods have succeeded the worst drought in decades, WFP is rolling out climate-friendly projects like clean stoves, broadening women’s access to climate insurance and other services, and working with partners to address barriers preventing women from having equal control over land and other natural resources.

In Asia, in places including Nepal and Bangladesh, WFP and partners give women farmers hardier seeds and drip-irrigation tools, among other assets, to better adapt to weather extremes. In Latin America,  indigenous women are being supported in diversifying their livelihoods, harnessing climate friendly practices passed down through generations, and learning new ones.

In Southern Africa, Mozambique counts among the countries in the world most vulnerable to extreme weather, from powerful cyclones to increased flooding and droughts – all of which threaten the country’s vital farming sector. Northern Cabo Delgado province, where Ibo Island is located, faces an additional menace: an ongoing conflict that has uprooted hundreds of thousands of people and fed soaring hunger levels. A WFP project, in partnership with the Government of Mozambique, has given displaced and other vulnerable women the tools to earn a living on Ibo Island.

Training and equipment to harvest and sell shellfish, process food, make ice and manage small businesses – along with the establishment of small desalination plants – offers skills women can use even if they are forced to move once again.

In Latin America, WFP is working with smallholder female farmers, fisherwomen and others to shore up their resilience to climate extremes.

In Guatemala, women growers are being trained to fly drones as part of a climate-monitoring and disaster-response programme. In Peru, WFP is working with women entrepreneurs in projects to also reduce food waste and enhance knowledge about nutrition.

In the Bolivian plateau, a WFP project teaches Uru women to make and sell handicrafts as a new income stream, now that a lake the community long depended on has dried up due to the changing climate. Other initiatives focus on water-harnessing systems like rainwater catchments and irrigation systems, along with fishing ponds.

Many of those WFP reaches, like the Uru women, come from indigenous communities, for whom the climate crisis has exacerbated longstanding discrimination and poverty – and whose knowledge, passed through generations, is invaluable.