Weather Shocks and Urban Livelihood Strategies: The Gender Dimension of Household Vulnerability in the Kumi District Of Uganda

ABSTRACT

The Teso sub-region of Uganda suffered numerous weather shocks in the past, with devastating food security consequences. Using household fixed effects and propensity score matching methods, we analyse the impact of exposure to drought, flood and severe incidence of pests and diseases on household consumption expenditure per adult equivalent for a random sample of households from Kumi Town Council. We find that weather shocks reduce consumption by 17 per cent and that the consumption decline is significantly larger among female-headed households. We also find a higher likelihood of non-farm employment, borrowing and receiving remittances in order to cope with the shocks.

Acknowledgements

This work was conducted with the generous sponsorship of the Graduate Program in Sustainability Science – Global Leadership Initiative (GPSS-GLI) of the University of Tokyo. We appreciate the comments and advice from Ggombe Kasim Munyegera, Makiko Sekiyama and members of the GPSS-GLI Graduate Seminar. All errors are entirely ours. In honour of JDS publication policy, we agree to share the data and/or codes that generated the results presented in this paper; these will be made available by the corresponding author upon request.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The World Food Summit of 1996 defined food security as existing ‘when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life’. Available at http://www.who.int/trade/glossary/story028/en/

2. Famine is defined as the sudden, sharp reduction in food supply resulting in widespread hunger (Eckholm & Brown, 1977). Other scholars define famine as the sudden collapse in the level of food consumption of large numbers of people (Scrimshaw, 1987) or a set of conditions that occurs when large numbers of people in a region cannot obtain sufficient food, resulting in widespread, acute malnutrition (Cuny & Hill, 1999).

3. An LC1 is the smallest administrative unit in the Uganda’s administrative hierarchy.

4. Household consumption expenditure includes expenditures on food, education, medication, semi-durable items like clothes, shoes and other household effects, contributions made towards social and religious functions and ceremonies.

5. The official exchange rate from The Bank of Uganda around the survey month of February was 2890 average. https://www.bou.or.ug/bou/collateral/interbank_forms/2015/Feb/Major_27Feb15.html

6. http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/Country-Profiles/UGA.pdf

7. These are the most commonly cited coping strategies in the literature.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Graduate Program in Sustainability Science – Global Leadership Initiative, The University of Tokyo [Masters Thesis Research Fund];