by Rebecca Pearl and Irene Dankelman

Climate Change is increasingly recognized as a major human security issue that poses serious global threats. Although climate change affects everyone regardless of race, caste, ethnicity, sex and level of income, its impacts are more heavily felt by poor nations, communities and people, and climate change magnifies existing inequalities. For the world's poor the impact will be most severe, disproportionately affecting their livelihoods and security. Women comprise 70% of those living below the poverty line. As a result, they are most likely to bear the heaviest burdens when natural disasters strike. At the same time, women are often overlooked as potential contributors to climate change solutions, and thus to the security of all human beings.

The Hyogo Framework for Action that emerged from the United Nation's 2005 World Conference on Disaster Reduction states that “a gender perspective should be integrated into all disaster risk management policies, plans and decision-making processes, including those  related to risk assessment, early warning, information management, and education and training”. It is, therefore, imperative that governments and other stakeholders build into their policies and programs strong links between gender, human security and climate change.

The consequences of climate change are closely related to the context in which individuals or groups experience the changes. The WEDO study presents a gendered analysis of how climate change impacts on human security. It also assesses whether adequate scope exists for women to participate in improved human security in a scenario of changing climate. Based on this analysis, recommendations are given for enhancing the integration of a gender perspective in climate change and human security policies and programs.

Many of the implications of natural disasters on women and men are documented in existing literature. The Gender and Disaster Network presents lessons learned from the field on their website (www.gdnonline.org).  In many societies, vulnerability to (natural) disasters differs for women and men. Women are often more vulnerable to disasters than men through their socially constructed roles and responsibilities, and because they are more poor.

In general, women have less access to resources that are essential in disaster preparedness, mitigation and rehabilitation. Gendered divisions of labor often result in the over-representation of women in agricultural and informal sectors, which are more vulnerable to disasters. Women, in general, are alsoresponsible for reproductive tasks such as food collection and energy supply for the household as well as many care-giving tasks, such as care for the children, sick, elderly, the home and assets.

Water, sanitation and health challenges put an extra burden on women, adding to the double burden of productive and reproductive labor when there is a disaster and a collapse of livelihood. In many societies, socio-cultural norms and care giving responsibilities prevent women from migrating to look for shelter and work when a disaster hits. Self-sacrifice even hampers women's own rescue efforts in any type of disaster.

Women also face indirect problems when natural disasters strike. They are often less mobile, more likely to be confined to the house and have less decision-making power. All of which contributes to their lack of participation, and lack of access to information regarding potential hazards and possible coping strategies. Besides diminishing their visibility, these realities deprive women of opportunities to look for alternative sources of income, adversely affecting their bargaining power in the household and community.

In a recent study by the London School of Economics, the University of Essex and the Max-Planck Institute of Economics a sample of 141 countries in which natural disasters occurred during the period 1981-2002 was analyzed. The main findings are that: (a)  natural disasters lower the life expectancy of women more than that of men; (b) the stronger the disaster, the stronger this effect on the gender gap in life expectancy , (c) the higher women's socio-economic status, the weaker this effect on the gender gap in life expectancy. The conclusion is that it is the socially constructed gender-specific vulnerability of women built into everyday socio-economic patterns that leads to the relatively higher female disaster mortality rates compared to those of men. For example, the 1991 cyclone in Bangladesh killed 138,000 people, many of which were women older than 40 years.

The disadvantaged position of women means greater difficulty in coping with disasters. For example, in a country like Bangladesh where women are more calorie-deficient than men, women have more problems recovering from the negative effects that flooding has on their health. An increase in the number of female-headed households (because of male out-migration) also amplifies women's responsibilities and vulnerabilities during natural disasters. After a disaster hits there are often inadequate facilities available for women to cope with their household tasks or to get shelter. Disaster relief efforts pay insufficient attention to women's reproductive and sexual health, and as a result women's health suffers disproportionately.

In the aftermath of disasters an increase in domestic and sexual violence often occurs. During or after disasters, such as long periods of drought, more girls drop out of school to reduce household expenses by saving on school fees, or to assist in the household with tasks such as fetching water, or as a result of pregnancy and early marriage. A study in Malawi (2001) showed that girl-children are married off early in times of drought, usually to older men with numerous sexual partners. They were even forced to sell sex for gifts or money, which resulted in the accelerated spread of HIV/AIDs in the country.

Lower levels of education reduce the ability of women and girls to access information-including early warning mechanisms-and resources, or to make their voices heard. This is an extra challenge when women want to innovate their livelihood strategies.

Empirical studies reveal that women and men make decisions differently. Whereas men are more risk-taking, women tend to be more risk averse. Men are more overconfident, thinking that they can predict and handle the future themselves, whereas women are more willing to adapt their strategies and behavior. Women usually listen to external advice, but men will not easily ask for directions. In general, women contribute more to a common good than do men and they are more aware of social bonds, showing greater reciprocity and altruism. However, when social bonds are weak, men can be observed to be more cooperative than women. These findings have major implications for disaster management and could form important underlying motives for women's and men's reactions to hazards.

This also indicates that gender-differentiated roles don't always result in higher losses for women. For example immediate mortality caused by hurricane Mitch in Central America was higher for men, not only because they were engaged in outdoor activities when the disaster struck, but also because they tend to be more overconfident in their behavior toward risk.

Women and climate change

Although climate change affects everyone, it is not gender neutral. Climate change magnifies existing inequalities, reinforcing the disparity between women and men in their vulnerability to and capability to cope with climate change.

Women, as the majority of the world's poor, are the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Not only are poor women more likely to become direct victims (mortalities and injuries) of climate change disasters, such as hurricanes and flooding, during natural disasters, often more women die than men because they are not warned, cannot swim or cannot leave the house alone. When poor women lose their livelihoods, they slip deeper into poverty and the inequality and marginalization they suffer from because of their gender increases. Therefore, climate change presents a very specific threat to their security.

Women made up 55-70% of the Banda Aceh (Indonesia) tsunami deaths, and in the worst affected village Kuala Cangkoy, in the North Aceh district, 80% of the deaths were women. According to BBC News online, of the 2003 French heat wave toll of 15,000, about 70% were women. And in the U.S., Hurricane Katrina entrenched poor African-American women, who were already the most impoverished group in the nation, in deeper levels of poverty.

Women's responsibilities in the family make them more vulnerable to environmental change, which is exacerbated by the impacts of climate change. They are being affected in their multiple roles as food producers and providers, as guardians of health, care givers, and economic actors. As access to basic needs and natural resources, such as shelter, food, fertile land, water and fuel, becomes hampered, women's workload increases. Also poor families, under which many female-headed households occur (e.g. 15% in Bangladesh, 10% in Nepal and 35% in rural India) often live in more precarious situations, on low lands, along dangerous riverbanks, or on steep slopes.

Drought, deforestation and erratic rainfall cause women to work harder to secure (natural) resources and livelihoods. In such situations, women have less time to earn income, get an education or training, or to participate in governing bodies. Girls regularly drop out of school to help their mothers to gather wood and water. “Loss of livelihood assets, displacement and migration may lead to reduced access to education opportunities, thus hampering the realization of MDG2 [United Nations Millennium Development Goal 2]. Depletion of natural resources and decreasing agricultural productivity may place additional burdens on women's health and reduce time for decision-making processes and income-generating activities, worsening gender equality and women's empowerment (MDG3)…”.

Conflict that arises from a shortage of natural resources amplifies existing gender inequalities, while the relocation of people has severe impacts on social support networks and family ties-mechanisms that have a crucial value for women, and in their coping capacity.

Women's coping strategies: strengthening security

Too often women are primarily perceived as the main victims of climate change and not as positive agents of change and contributors to livelihood adaptation strategies. As highlighted by Enarson and O'Brien, natural disasters could also provide women with a unique opportunity to challenge and change their gendered status in society. Women have been willing and able to take an active role in what are traditionally considered 'male' tasks in responding to disasters, e.g. following hurricane Mitch in Guatemala and Honduras in 1998.

In general, women have proved effective in mobilizing the community to respond to disasters, and in disaster preparedness and mitigation. For example, after Mitch struck the NGO Puntos de Encuentro in Nicaragua organized an information campaign “Violence against women is one disaster that men can prevent”. The campaign proved effective in changing men's attitudes towards violence against women.

Women usually have fewer assets than men to recover from natural disasters, and usually don't own land that can be sold to secure income in an emergency. Among the problems women identify when having to adapt to climate change, include lack of safe land and shelter, lack of other assets and resources, limited access to material and financial resources, lack of relevant skills and knowledge, high prices of agricultural inputs and other materials, and cultural barriers limiting women's access to services.

However, worldwide women are starting to adapt to a changing climate and can articulate what they need to secure and sustain their livelihoods more effectively. Local strategies for adapting to climate change provide valuable lessons.

Women often have a clear sense of what they need to adapt better. In several studies women have voiced their priorities in times of disaster:

• safety: a safe place to live for their families and themselves; including relocation to safe areas, shelters, and adaptation in situ by the construction of solid houses; the storage of their harvest and livestock;
• adaptation in agricultural practices, icluding crop diversification;
• better access to information;
• access to services such as doctors and pharmacists, and agricultural extension;
• development of their capacities, through training and information (incl. through exposure and exchange visits about adaptation strategies and livelihood alternatives);
• access to resources, including climate-related finances, improved access to credits and markets, to implement effective strategies and overcome constraints;
• ecological restoration.

Women's Capacity to Adapt

1. In the midst of a drought in the Federated States of Micronesia    women used their experience working the land to dig into the ground and create a new well filled with drinkable freshwater. But planners and decision-makers had not considered their possible contributions.
2. In November 2006, the Kenyan women's organization the Green Belt Movement and the World Bank's Community Development Carbon Fund Project signed an Emission Reductions Purchase Agreement (ERPA) to reforest 2,000 hectares on two mountain areas in Kenya with thousands of indigenous trees.
3. In a CARE project in Bangladesh, women tended to prioritize aptation strategies that could be implemented close to home, such as homestead gardening and duck rearing. In the project, that recruited female field officers, women comprised 58% of total project participants.

The framework below shows that if we define human security as security of survival (mortality/injury, health), security of livelihood (food, water, energy, environmental, shelter, and economic security), and dignity (basic human rights, capacity, participation), climate change has different effects on these respective security aspects and show gender specific characteristics. Women have developed specific adaptive strategies to cope with these problems. There are a wide range of (policy) opportunities in which adaptive measures can be taken to address women's priorities in times of climate change that threaten their security.

Recommendations

The following recommendations are based on the outcomes of the study on gender, climate change and human security and the three country specific case studies:

Climate change and human security

• Identify, research and integrate climate change as a human security issue into human rights frameworks, mechanisms and legislation, including the Hyogo Framework for Action.
• Apply a human security framework to climate change at all policy levels.
• Conduct a vulnerability analysis of climate change mitigation and adaptation and promote an integrated human and environmental security approach that is proactive and inclusive and combines top-down measures (e.g. institutional consolidation, laws, norms and policies) with bottom-up participation and resilience-building for exposed communities.

Gender aspects of climate change:
ensuring human security

• Include a gender perspective in global and national climate change policies, documents, programs and budgets.
• Guarantee women's participation in climate change decisions, and amplify women's voices in global, national and regional institutions, as well as in open dialogue at the community level.
• Acknowledge across sectors that women are among the most affected by climate change because of their social and economic situations and because of their role in the family.
• Enhance institutional capacity to mainstream gender in global and national climate change and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) policies and operations through the development of gender policies, gender awareness, internal and external gender capacity and expertise, and the development and application of relevant mechanisms and tools.
• Conduct gender-specific vulnerability assessments, and apply a gender analysis to global climate change policies and institutional mechanisms.
• Develop gender-sensitive indicators for use by governments in national reports to UNFCCC and related policies and mechanisms.
• Create gender-specific disaster reduction policies to address the effects of climate change in disaster-prone areas, as well as pragmatic national and international interventions to ensure food, energy and water security, economic resilience and security of place/habitat, particularly for poor and migrating women and their families.
• Promote women's empowerment through capacity-building before, during and after climate-related disasters, as well as their active involvement in disaster anticipation, early warning and prevention as part of their resilience building.
• Guarantee women's rights in climate change mitigation and adaptation, including their rights to knowledge, skills, land ownership, participation in decision-making and access to services.
• Construct a legal regime that safeguards the security of women affected by climate change, including mechanisms to review land-use planning and infrastructure work.
• Incorporate climate change in discussions on women's rights and related interventions, which often focus on political, social and economic empowerment and protection in a non-disaster context.
• Ensure that government policies and programs on human rights, women's rights and climate change are coherent and reinforce each other.
• Encourage the women's movement to take full responsibility and ownership of the gender and climate change discourse to ensure that implementation of UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol (and post-KP) measures take their specific concerns into account.

Adaptive capacity: strengthening human security

• Build on and strengthen women's experiences, knowledge and coping capacity adaptation policies and ensure that women's needs are considered in livelihood adaptation strategies.
• Integrate a gender approach and enhance women's human security in all National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs).
• Foster women's direct involvement in both policy and project planning in NAPA preparation.
• Create an environment in which women's engagement in adaptation discussions and governance structures is fully supported-in order to do so, existing coping strategies and constraints to adaptation should be studied.
• Empower women as agents of adaptation, and provide women with opportunities to control greater percentages of resources (including land) and services and to make independent decisions.
• Prevent cultural practices from hindering women's capacity to adapt.
• Support and promote practical solutions to enhance women's adaptive capacity and livelihoods including alternative agricultural practices, equitable employment opportunities, access to credit, labor-saving technologies and equipment, safe shelter and facilities, energy and water supply and services.
• Assist women and their coalitions and networks at community, national and international levels to ensure that recovery and adaptation measures respond to women's needs and concerns.
• Provide training to women's organizations, networks and support groups and opportunities to share experiences-women and their organizations should demonstrate exemplary leadership and serve as gender advocates and credible ambassadors on climate change.
• Acknowledge women's social, economic, physical and psychological vulnerabilities in community-based preparedness and response plans in order to reduce the impact of disasters on women.
• Recognize women's abilities and incorporate them into disaster relief efforts with the goal of changing gendered roles and perception of rights.
• Endeavor to ensure that activities are appropriate for women, and that they receive positive encouragement and support for participation.  

Financing mechanisms

• Integrate human security for women into climate change funding mechanisms, to ensure that poor women get a fair share of funds-practical tools such as accountability mechanisms would support gender equality's incorporation into climate change initiatives, including the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).
• Consider developing a mechanism for the CDM to fund projects that make renewable energy technologies available to women. For example, NAPAs should target women as important actors in adaptation activities.
• Set up adaptation funds, according to principles of democratic governance and civil society participation to play a key role in promoting women's rights and to prioritize poor women's needs.
• Ensure women's engagement in adaptation financing mechanisms.
• Create adaptation finance mechanisms that support livelihood adaptation priorities of poor women, and include gender-disaggregated indicators in adaptation funds for targeting and monitoring the benefits to poor women.

Further research

• Conduct a gender-based approach to the study and analysis of climate change and natural disasters and collect more research, particularly supported by sex-disaggregated data.
• Apply lessons from the Global Environmental Change and Human Security (GEHS) program (one of the science programs of the International Human Dimension Program) to climate change research, and use participatory research tools to study the impacts of climate change on women's livelihoods.
• Promote women's equal participation in climate change science and research.

Capacity building and networking

• Invest in strengthening the capacity of women and gender activists on climate change issues and apply affirmative action principles to draw women into climate change institutional structures and policy-making arenas.
• Enhance cooperation with women climate change organizations, including the Global Gender and Climate Alliance, WEDO, IUCN ENERGIA, genderCC Network - Women for Climate Justice, Gender and Disaster Network, and national partners.

This policy paper (by Rebecca Pearl and Irene Dankelman) is excerpted from the complete Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) study on gender, climate change, and human security, including case studies by ABANTU for Development (Ghana), ActionAid (Bangladesh) and ENDA (Senegal). Authors: Irene Dankelman, Wahida Bashar Ahmed, Khurshid Alam, Yacine Diagne Gueye, Naureen Fatema, and Rose Mensah-Kutin. Editors: Anna Grossman and Cate Owren.  www.wedo.org