Gender & pastoralist resilience to climate change in NW Kenya

In pastoralist communities, climate change will have different impacts on women and men’s livelihoods. Building resilience at individual, household and community level will largely depend on the suitability of interventions to the local context, particularly in relation to the social dynamics and power relations that create differences in vulnerability. The research presented in the paper “Gender and resilience to climate variability in pastoralists livelihoods system: two case studies in Kenya” (2017) by Nancy Omolo et al, published in Journal of Sustainable Development 10(2), focuses on two ecological zones in Turkana County in northwestern Kenya: an agropastoral zone and a primarily pastoral zone. The paper aims to evaluate women’s and men’s capacity to adapt to climate variability. The results suggest that agropastoralists are more resilient to climate change than are pastoralists, and male-headed household are more resilient than are female-headed ones. Access to basic services contributes more in the resilience score than do assets or the sex or age of the household head. Generally, few families in the region have a high resilience score.

Posted on 28 February 2019 in Pastoralism & Climate Change, Pastoralism, Gender & Youth