Gender differentiated vulnerability to climate change in Eastern Uganda

ABSTRACT

Climate change literature is rife with the assertion that women are more vulnerable to climate change, which state is expected to reflect on female-headed households. However, this assertion has however not been empirically proven aside from the general poverty-gender linkages. This study used primary data collected in 2016 from 735 randomly selected households from four districts in Eastern Uganda to construct a gender vulnerability index to compare and explain the drivers of vulnerability between male and female-headed households. The results show that female-headed households were more vulnerable (GVI-IPCC = −0.134) than male-headed households (GVI-IPCC = −0.176). The results further show that disparity in adaptive capacity mediates vulnerability between male and female-headed households. This underscores the importance of proactive interventions rather than protectionist approaches to reducing vulnerability. The study has extended the analytical utility of the livelihood vulnerability index to create a gender vulnerability index for comparing contextual groups of households in Eastern Uganda.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• climate change
• adaptive capacity
• vulnerability

Notes on contributors

Kenneth Balikoowa is a PhD candidate whose research interest is natural resources management. He conducts research on gender and climate change adaptation, forestry and environmental management in Uganda. This work is one of the outputs from the Regional Capacity Building for Sustainable Resource Management and Agricultural Productivity under Changing Climate (CAPSNAC) project covering three countries whose main goal is to strengthen research capabilities in climate change and to generate knowledge for policy formulation.

Gorrettie Nabanoga (Associate Professor) is an experienced social forester. She has over 20 years of experience in forestry research at both the international and local levels. She has firm interest in gender and is currently working as a gender specialist on the Regional Capacity Building for Sustainable Resource Management and Agricultural Productivity under Changing Climate (CAPSNAC).

David Mwesigye Tumusiime is an Associate Professor of Environment and Natural Resources in the School of Forestry, Environmental and Geographical Sciences at Makerere University and is the Director of Makerere University Biological Field Station. He has interdisciplinary training at both master and PhD levels and has extensive experience and interest in research on human dimensions of natural resource management drawing on perspectives from a variety of fields including sociology, economics, and political ecology.

Dr Michael S. Mbogga holds a PhD in forest biology and management from the University of Alberta. Dr Mbogga’s PhD research focused on developing climate change adaptation strategies for forest management under uncertain future climate. Mbogga also worked as an associate Scientist with Biodiversity international (IPGRI) in Rome and in Nairobi where he coordinated information management for IPGRI’s global forest genetic resources programmes and oversaw project implementation in subSaharan Africa. Dr Mbogga was part of the team that established the Makerere University centre for Climate change Research and Innovations (MUCCRI) and has coordinated two MUCCRI projects specifically one on climate impacts assessment of Uganda and another supporting six district local governments in Uganda central cattle corridor to develop knowledge management and communication systems for climate change adaptation.

ORCID

Kenneth Balikoowa http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7358-608X

Gorettie Nabanoga http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1243-2703