Rethinking climate change through a gender and adolescent lens in Ethiopia

ABSTRACT

Ethiopia is increasingly experiencing the impacts of climate change, with stark consequences for the most disadvantaged groups, including youth, women and girls. Within climate action, there is limited understanding of how climate change responses address age and gender vulnerabilities. This article uses a gender and adolescence lens to explore how Ethiopia’s climate mitigation and adaptation responses shape progress towards three Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 (gender equality) targets using a capabilities approach. It draws on qualitative data from the Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (GAGE) longitudinal study with adolescents aged 10–20, their parents and key informants, in three diverse regions. It finds that although climate mitigation strategies (including gender-sensitive social protection measures) are impacting gender equality positively by increasing access to water and supporting food-insecure households in times of drought, substantial challenges remain. The findings underscore that while climate actions are increasingly gender-responsive, they are less responsive to the age-specific vulnerabilities of adolescents, especially girls. To accelerate progress and ensure inclusive climate action, adolescent participation should be promoted at all levels, and climate actions should reach the most vulnerable populations, including those in remote rural communities and particularly vulnerable groups such as married adolescents.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethiopia
• climate change
• adolescence
• gender norms
• Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Introduction

Ethiopia accounts for less than 0.3% of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet it is among the top 40 countries (of 185) that are considered most vulnerable to climate change (ND-GAIN, 2015; United States Agency for International Development [USAID], 2015). Moreover, the most disadvantaged groups (children, females, and people living in poverty) are most at risk of the consequences of climate change. Women and girls in Ethiopia are disproportionately at risk due to gendered inequalities within the home and community, leaving them extremely vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change, yet climate change responses are often not gender-responsive. Effective responses to climate change require an understanding of how gender inequalities shape vulnerability to climate change, which should be seen as a central pillar to climate policy and action (UN Women, 2016).

Although the gendered impacts of climate change are well-known¹ – including girls and women facing greater risk of death and injury during climate-related natural hazards, as well as increased levels of sexual and gender-based violence and increased food insecurity (Sellers, 2016) – there has been less attention to how climate change responses reflect equity concerns, especially with regard to gender and age. Adolescents have become increasingly visible agents of change within climate action (Pereznieto et al., 2020), and the growing youth climate movement has called attention to young people’s drive and passion for advocating for climate action. Yet, within climate-related decision-making, young people – particularly girls – still face significant challenges in actively participating. This article explores how different climate mitigation and adaptation responses in Ethiopia at the country, regional and community levels shape progress towards three Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets:

• SDG 5.2: Eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation.

• SDG 5.a Undertake reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, financial services, inheritance and natural resources, in accordance with national laws.

• SDG 5.5: Ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life.

This article starts with a review of the current literature on the impact of climate change on adolescent girls and boys, followed by an overview of climate change action strategies, policies and programming in Ethiopia to contextualize our findings. It then describes the methods used for this research. The results are then presented drawing on data from the Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (GAGE) longitudinal study looking at the three chosen SDG indicators. We conclude with a discussion of the main results, highlighting key implications for policy and programming.

Age- and gender-based vulnerabilities to climate change

Climate change is one of the most pressing global challenges of our time. Although the impacts of climate change are being experienced across the world, some people and areas are experiencing climate change at a greater intensity than others. Women often face gendered vulnerabilities to climate change; the literature suggests they are more likely to be killed during climate-related natural hazards (Neumayer & Plümper, 2007) and are more likely to go hungry after such events (Williams, 2015), which can even disrupt access to family planning (UNFPA, 2015) and impact maternal health outcomes (Strand et al., 2011; Carolan-Olah & Frankowska, 2014). Children, adolescents and youth are also highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change – for example, experiencing high rates of death and injury during climate-related hazards and through disruption of services needed for their long-term development (Diwakar et al., 2019; Sanson & Burke, 2019). These vulnerabilities are compounded by gender norms that present specific challenges for adolescent girls. It is estimated that by 2025, climate change will be a contributing factor in at least 12.5 million girls globally each year not completing their education (Fry & Lei, 2021). This is due to climate-related events that lead to increased migration, school closures, and result in more time spent collecting water – all of which disproportionately impact girls due to prevailing gender norms (ibid.). Girls also face increased risk of violence during climate-related displacement and conflict, and within their homes due to the additional household stressors that result from climate hazards such as drought (Pereznieto et al., 2020).

Impacts of climate change on girls and women in Ethiopia

Ethiopia is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change due to its strong reliance on agriculture (which accounts for nearly half of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP)) and high prevalence of drought (USAID, 2016). From 1955 to 2015, Ethiopia’s average annual temperature has risen by 1.65°C (Abebe, 2017), which has resulted in increased incidence of drought and other extreme events (USAID, 2016). Climate-related natural hazards are only set to worsen, with climate models predicting that Ethiopia will see a further increase in temperature of between 1°C and 2°C by the 2050s (ibid.).

Climate-related natural hazards such as drought and flooding can present significant challenges to people’s lives and livelihoods, including food and water insecurity, increases in water-borne and vector-borne disease, increased numbers of deaths and injuries, and higher levels of migration. In Ethiopia, the 2015/16 El Niño droughts are estimated to have caused food insecurity for 10.2 million people (FAO, 2016) and to have reduced food consumption among affected households by 8% (Kasie et al., 2020). Studies in Ethiopia found that exposure to drought at ages 5, 8 and 13 years lowered growth rates, with girls suffering worse outcomes than boys (Bahru et al., 2019). Pest outbreaks due to changing weather patterns can also affect livelihoods. During 2019 and 2020, Ethiopia faced the worst locust infestations in a quarter of a century, which (since the start of 2020) have destroyed 200,000 hectares of cropland (Interchurch Organisation for Development Co-operation [ICCO], 2020; Salih et al., 2020). Climate change can also affect occurrence of vector-borne and water-borne diseases. In Ethiopia, due to temperature rises in recent years, areas such as the highland regions, which previously had low rates of malaria, are becoming more favourable for the disease (Lyon et al., 2017).

Furthermore, although the links between climate change and conflict are complex, research suggests that climate-related factors (such as resource scarcity) can interact with existing stressors and contribute to an increase in violence (Peters et al., 2020). Ethiopia has seen high rates of ethnic violence in recent years, including between communities in different regions (Somali and Oromia, SNNPR (Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples) and Oromia and Gambella and Benishangul-Gumuz), with studies suggesting that resource scarcity may have been a contributing factor (Mohamed, 2018).

Climate change can also cause resource and water scarcity, resulting in more time spent collecting water (Balehegn & Kelemework, 2013); in Ethiopia, due to gendered expectations around household chores, this task primarily falls to girls and women. In one study, over 40% of women in Ethiopia were unable to collect water either due to long queues or a lack of water (Stevenson et al., 2012). This can have indirect impacts on girls’ education; the same study found that 18% of women prevented their daughter going to school so that she could help collect water (ibid.).

Climate adaptation and mitigation strategies

Although, as discussed earlier, there is growing evidence on the gendered impacts of climate change, SDG 13 on climate action is one of the goals that is furthest behind in terms of gender equality (Equal Measures 2030, 2020). This highlights that within climate action, much more needs to be done to ensure that mitigation and adaptation processes are gender-responsive.

The Government of Ethiopia has launched a number of major policy initiatives for climate mitigation and adaptation, and is currently rated by the Climate Action Tracker as 2°C compatible.² The Climate Resilient Green Economy strategy document (published in 2011 and currently under review) lays out the approach for ensuring that Ethiopia reaches middle-income status by 2030 while keeping greenhouse emissions low. More recently, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has also set out an ambitious Green Legacy Initiative, which aims to plant 20 billion trees in four years. Furthermore, the fourth phase of Ethiopia’s flagship public works scheme, the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP), aims to support households affected by drought-induced food insecurity. As part of the PSNP initiative, beneficiary households of the programme also engage in environmental protection works such as afforestation.

Within Ethiopia’s climate policies, gender analysis for Ethiopia’s National Adaptation Plan (Environment, Forest and Climate Change Commission, 2019) includes detailed recommendations for gender-specific adaptation options and strategic priorities. These include recognizing how social norms contribute to climate change vulnerabilities, promoting equitable access to and control over natural resources, and addressing gender issues in governance structures (see Table 1). The Intended Nationally Determined Contribution document includes a general statement on ensuring that ‘Ethiopia’s response to climate change aims to integrate actions that improve the status of women and the welfare of children’ (Ministry of Environment and Forest, 2015, p. 4), however it lacks detailed objectives to achieve this.

Table 1. Gender- and age-responsive considerations within Ethiopian national environmental policies.

Country	Environment policy	Examples of action with a gender or youth focus	Gender-responsive considerations	Adolescent/youth-responsive considerations
Ethiopia	Ethiopia’s Climate Resilient Green Economy, National Adaptation Plan, 2019 (Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE), 2019)	Social protection and livelihood options ‘This adaptation option will give special emphasis to women, children and impoverished communities by putting in place safety net schemes, supporting asset creation, improving access to credit, promoting livelihood diversification and arranging voluntary resettlement/ migration’ (FDRE, 2019, p. 27).	Gender-sensitivity is a key guiding principle of the policy and gender-disaggregated data will be collected at all levels. However, attention to gender is only highlighted in 1/18 major adaption options: social protection and livelihoods.	Attention to age is only highlighted in 1/18 major adaption options: social protection and livelihoods.
	Integrating Gender Considerations in Ethiopia’s National Adaptation Plan (NAP) Process: Analysis and Recommendations, 2019 (EFCCC, 2019)	Recommendations for adaptation options ‘Address attitudes, social norms and personal security issues that exacerbate vulnerability to climate change’ (EFCCC, 2019, p. 13) ‘Address imbalances in access to information and knowledge for adaptation’ (including collection gender-disaggregated data) (ibid: 14) ‘Promote equitable access to and control over the natural resources needed for adaptation’ (ibid: 15) ‘Enable sustainable and resilient livelihoods for women and men’ (ibid: 17) ‘Address gender considerations in governance systems and structures’ (ibid: 18) ‘Engage in gender-responsive technology promotion’ (ibid: 19) ‘Value and utilize diverse knowledge held by women and men in identifying and implementing adaptation actions’ (ibid: 20) Recommendations for strategic priorities ‘Ensure participation of gender actors in NAP-ETH institutional arrangements and stakeholder engagement processes’ (ibid: 22) ‘Increase the capacity of institutions involved in the NAP process to integrate gender considerations’ (ibid.) ‘Institutionalise gender-responsive resource allocation’ (ibid: 23) ‘Invest in adaptation research and development to facilitate gender-responsive adaptation’ (ibid.) ‘Integrate gender issues in the monitoring and evaluation system for the NAP process’ (ibid.)	Includes detailed recommendations for gender-specific adaptation options and strategic priorities, including addressing social norms, participation of women, equal livelihoods.	Lack of attention to children, adolescents or youth.
	Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (Ministry of Environment and Forest, 2015)	Long-term goals ‘Ethiopia’s response to climate change aims to integrate actions that improve the status of women and the welfare of children’ (Ministry of Environment and Forest, 2015, p. 4).	Includes a general statement on improving the status of women but lacks detailed objectives.	Includes a general statement on improving the welfare of children but lacks detailed objectives.

Source (Devonald et al., 2020).

Ethiopia’s climate policies provide multiple gender-responsive objectives, although it is unclear how well these are implemented at the local and regional levels. The Environment, Forest and Climate Change Commission (EFCCC) and the Ministry of Finance are the two main federal organizations responsible for coordinating climate change actions. A recent review of their response to climate change and gender found that although there is strong understanding of the importance of a gender-responsive approach, there is often a lack of institutionalization, which can impact gender-responsive planning and implementation and undermine gender-equal decision-making (Ayalew & Mersha, 2020).

In order to ensure that climate action is aligned with both the gendered and age-specific needs of adolescents, there is a particular need for gender-equal leadership and attention to the voices of girls, women and youth³ in climate strategies and policy. However, there is a notable lack of adolescent and youth-responsive considerations within climate change policies, and none highlight children and youth as key stakeholders who should participate in climate decision-making processes. For many adolescent girls in Ethiopia, active participation in decision-making – whether in public or private life – is restricted due to conservative gender norms that limit girls’ agency and opportunities for participation (Jones et al., 2019). Yet Ethiopia has seen remarkable political transformation over recent years, with a cabinet that is 50% female and the appointment of Ethiopia’s first female president, Sahle-Work Zewde. This presents an opportunity to bring female and youth voices to the forefront of climate adaptation and mitigation strategies to achieve both SDG 13 on climate action and SDG 5 on gender equality. At the grassroots level, there are also community structures (including the Women’s Development Army) that involve local women in community-based development initiatives. These could be harnessed to amplify female voices in community dialogues around climate change mitigation and resilience. Some adolescent girls are also members of the youth associations at the community level, and they can play important roles in mobilizing young people to engage in environmental protection activities.

Methods

Conceptual framing

This article takes a capabilities approach to climate action, informed by an adapted version of the GAGE programme’s conceptual framework (GAGE consortium, 2019). This framework is a socio-ecological model that highlights the close connections between adolescents’ capabilities and the household, family, community, state and global contexts in which they are situated (ibid.). It draws on Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach (1984; 2004) (further nuanced by Martha Nussbaum, 2000), emphasizing that justice should be defined in terms of the freedoms or capabilities that people need in order to be and do in ways that they value. Holland (2008) expands Nussbaum’s approach to recognize that individual capabilities are dependent on our natural environment, and thus recognizes environmental conditions as an independent ‘meta-capability’ that allows people ‘to live one’s life in the context of ecological conditions that can provide environmental resources and services that enable the current generation’s range of capabilities’ (ibid: 324).

Adopting a capabilities approach to climate action can bring recognition of specific local vulnerabilities and aid our understanding of the specific ways in which an unsustainable environment can undermine the foundation of human capabilities (Schlosberg, 2012). Adopting this view, we highlight the direct and indirect consequences of climate change for adolescent capabilities. For the purposes of this article, we focus on three of the six GAGE capability domains – bodily integrity and freedom from violence, economic empowerment, and voice and agency – and their relation to three of the indicators under SDG 5 (SDG 5.2, SDG 5.a, and SDG 5.5). We also recognize that these capabilities are influenced by adolescents’ existing social characteristics, including sex and age, which can heighten adolescent girls’ vulnerability to the impacts of climate change. In this article, we focus on climate mitigation and adaptation strategies that can help alleviate these impacts on adolescent capabilities, and focus on understanding how these mitigation strategies shape progress towards the commitment to gender equality for all, as enshrined in SDG 5. As well as looking at the role of climate action in contributing to adolescents’ capabilities, we aim to understand the role that adolescent voice and agency can play in contributing to age- and gender-responsive approaches within climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Data collection and analysis

The article uses data from ongoing participatory research conducted in 2018–19 and midline data collected in 2019–20 with adolescents and youth aged 10–20, their caregivers and siblings, and key informants. Data was collected from diverse urban, rural and pastoralist settings across Ethiopia: South Gondar (Amhara), East Hararghe (Oromia), and Zone 5 (Afar). Researchers spoke the local language, and interviews were carried out by researchers of the same sex as the respondent. (The research sample is presented in Table 2.) The sample includes subsets of particularly vulnerable adolescents (those with disabilities, those who married early and those who have been displaced).

Table 2. Qualitative sample of research participants.

	Dire Dawa (urban)	Debre Tabor (urban)	Batu (urban)	South Gondar (rural)	East Hararghe (rural)	Zone 5 (rural)	Total
Younger female adolescents	12	–	–	12	12	4	40
Younger male adolescents	12	–	–	12	12	4	40
Older female adolescents	13	–	–	24	28	22	86
Older male adolescents	11	–	–	25	28	25	89
Total adolescents	48			73	80	55
Midline sample
Younger girls	9	6	–	24	25	12	76
Older girls	14	8	11	3	5	8	49
Younger boys	5	8	–	22	16	12	63
Older girls	12	8	10	6	4	5	45
Married adolescents	2	2	1	30	30	18	83
Adolescents with disabilities	2	8	5	16	12	9	52
Internally displaced adolescents	6	–	7	–	7	–	20
Total adolescents	50	40	34	101	99	64	388
Parents (in-depth interviews)	5	3	–	8	–	–	16
Key informants	5	4	21	39	51	9	129
Focus groups with adolescents	21	20	48	54	60	16	219
Focus groups with parents	36	–	28	117	133	68	382
Total	117	67	131	319	343	157	1134

Interviews used a range of participatory and interactive qualitative tools to encourage rich discussion. Tools were designed specifically for adolescents to discuss, in groups, the challenges (including environment and climate change hazards) they and their communities face, and to encourage them to brainstorm suggestions for improvements to programming, services and infrastructure that would promote more adolescent- and gender-friendly communities (see Jones et al., 2018 for details).

Research ethics

Ethical approval was secured from the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) Research Ethics Committee and from regional ethics boards in all three study sites in Ethiopia. We obtained informed consent from adult participants (over the age of 18), and informed assent from respondents under the age of 18, as well as informed consent from their caregivers.

Research analysis

The qualitative interviews were translated and transcribed into English by local language speakers and coded using the qualitative software MAXQDA. Initial analysis was undertaken during daily and site-wide debriefings, which fed into the development of a thematic codebook. The codebook was developed iteratively and based on the GAGE conceptual framework (discussed earlier), and expanded to fit local specificities.

Results

We now turn to discuss our qualitative research findings, organized thematically according to the three gender equality themes linked to SDG 5 targets: bodily integrity and freedom from violence (SDG 5.2); economic empowerment (SDG 5.a); and voice and agency (SDG 5.5).

Bodily integrity and freedom from violence

SDG 5.2 aims to ‘Eliminate all forms of violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres, including trafficking and sexual and other types of exploitation.’ Climate-related hazards can put adolescent girls and women at heightened risk of gender-based violence, both within their household and in their community, and can impede access to bodily integrity and freedom from violence. Drought means that girls and women often have to travel long distances to get water, creating additional time spent on household chores. A 15-year-old married girl from Afar explained: ‘If there is no rain, we must travel for an hour to reach the river. If we start the journey at 7 am, we will be back by 9 am.’ We found that girls are at risk of sexual violence or harassment from men and boys while they are out collecting water or firewood. An 11-year-old girl from South Gondar explained: ‘There are places where boys bother us, the forest near school on the way to the water pump. This forest, girls get raped there.’ Due to water shortages, gender-based violence can also occur at water pumps, and girls are particularly at risk of getting hurt. An 18-year-old boy from East Hararghe explained:

A lot of girls have been hurt at the water point. When girls fetch the water, the boys may elbow pregnant girls in the abdomen and fetch the water first. The girl fall to the ground on the cement floor and gets hurt in such incidents.

Migration from rural areas of Ethiopia to urban centres or abroad to Middle-Eastern countries is also linked to climate change. Climate-related shocks such as drought in rural areas (particularly in Afar) can result in economic challenges and food insecurity, ultimately pushing adolescents to migrate for better opportunities. A 10-year-old girl from East Hararghe explained: ‘They are forced to migrate when they are unable to support themselves in food’. Adolescent girls often migrate through brokers and can be put in risky situations where they face exploitative forms of work and risk sexual exploitation. A key informant from Debre Tabor (South Gondar) highlighted some of the risks girls face: ‘They can contact brokers to get a housemaid job. But this could lead to harm. I know someone who was raped and got pregnant … She later returned to her home as she couldn’t get the required support. Others might face risks such as not being paid the correct wage.’

Our findings also indicate that resource scarcity, which is exacerbated by climate change, can contribute to conflict between ethnic groups in Ethiopia. We found that in some cases, tensions between Amhara and Argoba communities and Afar pastoralists stem from conflict over access to fertile ground. A 15-year-old boy from Afar described: ‘The main cause for the conflicts is the issue of land. When we migrate to their land looking for grass for cattle, they will kill us.’ Similarly, conflict along the Somali–Oromia regional border also stem from tensions over resource scarcity. During 2017 and 2018, there was widespread violence in this region, with high levels of physical and sexual violence during the conflict and subsequent population displacements. A 17-year-old internally displaced girl living in East Hararghe commented: ‘There is a river called Erer. We have been using the river for all purposes. It is a big river used for farming, drinking and so on. There is a big conflict of interest between us and the Somalis.’ Another 17-year-old internally displaced girl added: ‘If they get girls they chase them or they take them to their area and rape them’.

A number of nationwide climate strategies may help to reduce violence against women and girls. In line with the Climate Resilient Green Economy strategy, in 2018 Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Dr Abiy Ahmed launched a nationwide greening initiative involving tree planting (in urban and rural settings) and urban beautification (for major urban centres). It aims to reduce emissions from the forest sector and promote sustainable tree-based production systems (Atani, 2019). Among our study sample, some adolescents have been involved in tree planting and other activities such as terracing and natural resource-promotion initiatives. A 17-year-old boy from South Gondar described getting involved in tree planting after hearing about the initiative on the radio: ‘My father listened to the radio and he shared the information with me. After we got the information, we planted a number of trees.’ During a group discussion among men in South Gondar, one described the impact that these initiatives have had on the local community: ‘The place is looking beautiful … Not only that the streams that were gone before are now emerging again. Endemic trees that were disappearing are now flourishing again.’

As well as planting trees, there has been a push to prevent deforestation for charcoal production. A 16-year-old boy from East Hararghe explained: ‘They cut trees from the forest and burn them for charcoal. Nowadays, young people are following and prohibiting people who cut trees and burn charcoal.’ However, the relationship between climate change and deforestation is complex; many community members highlighted that they rely on selling firewood and charcoal during times of drought as an alternative livelihood source. This results in a double-edged sword where charcoal and firewood production and selling are a mechanism for helping the community respond to the economic consequences of climate change, yet can also result in further deforestation. In a group discussion with boys aged 17–19 from East Hararghe, one explained their reliance on these practices: ‘We have been cutting the trees in winter season when we turn very poor, when we do not have a penny. The climate heat has increased and our environment has become as hot as Djibouti. We cleared out the forest because of poverty.’

The Green Legacy Initiative has the potential to reduce risks of gender-based violence through reducing desertification, increasing the availability of fertile land, preventing soil erosion and reducing polluted water sources and increasing the availability of underground water. These measures could help decrease the distances girls and women have to travel to collect water, and in turn can help to reduce experiences of violence while collecting water. Furthermore, increases in natural resources and availability of fertile land could help reduce ethnic tensions.

Alongside planting many more trees, increasing the provision of water points should also help reduce violent scuffles at those points. As a 17-year-old boy from East Hararghe commented: ‘There will be no such problem if the government develops water points nearby to each village. There will be no more conflict because of the water shortage.’ The government’s One WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) National Programme aimed to increase water supply by 98% in rural areas and 100% in urban areas by 2020; although this goal was not reached, 18.7 million people did receive a clean water supply in its first phase (Trachoma Coalition, 2016; The Borgen Project, 2020). However, in practice, some challenges persist, and our study respondents highlighted long delays in communities receiving water infrastructure. A 17-year-old boy from East Hararghe explained:

The kebele [smallest administrative unit] administrator has reported the community’s anger due to lack of swift response. The woreda [district level division] administrator is performing poorly. For instance, the water supply project for which pipelines are being distributed was started nine years ago, but still we couldn’t get potable water supply.

As such, in some communities, and particularly in pastoralist Afar, there is still a significant lack of clean and easily accessible water, which means that girls and women still face threats to their bodily integrity while travelling long distances to collect water.

Economic empowerment

SDG 5.a aims to ‘Undertake reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources as well as access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, financial services, inheritance and natural resources, in accordance with national laws.’ The impacts of climate change present multi-layered economic challenges to rural communities in Ethiopia. We found that many households in our sample were experiencing food insecurity as a result of climate-related hazards such as drought. A 16-year-old married girl from East Hararghe explained: ‘When there is no rain on the farm, everything would be ruined. At that time we would face food shortages in the household. We would have nothing to eat when the crops are destroyed in the field.’ In some communities, desert locust infestations have destroyed crops, further impacting food insecurity. These events can also have indirect impacts on children’s school attendance, with some leaving school due to household poverty and increased migration. A community leader from East Hararghe explained: ‘The other problem that is affecting the education of the children is the recurrent drought in this area. Parents are preoccupied with feeding their children rather than paying attention to their education’.

Ethiopia’s PSNP is a key adaptation strategy to respond to the economic challenges and food insecurity that result from climate-related natural hazards such as drought. The programme provides food and cash support to 8 million households in food-insecure districts across the country and simultaneously invests public works labour in community infrastructure, including environmental protection measures. Accordingly, it has the potential to contribute to adolescent girls’ and women’s economic empowerment and to SDG 5.a, to ‘Undertake reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources.’ The fourth phase of the PSNP, which runs from 2015 to 2020, highlights the implications of Ethiopia’s increasingly unpredictable weather patterns and aims to increase household resilience to climate shocks (Sandford & Hobson, 2011; Department for International Development, n.d.). As well as providing households with the means to adapt to the impacts of climate change, it also contributes to climate change mitigation through initiatives that harness public works labour for tree planting, terracing, and soil and water conservation. The public works scheme is informed by a gender-sensitive design, with activities that include building community water points, which in turn reduce the time women and girls spend collecting water for the household. As mentioned earlier, it may also have indirect impacts on exposure to violence due to shorter distances to water points.

When natural hazard-related shocks occur, communities rely on assistance from the PSNP to combat food insecurity. A grandmother from South Gondar explained: ‘It [drought] has been occurring intermittently … In recent years, we have been relying on food assistance as we often experience food shortage.’ However, in some of the hardest-to-reach areas such as pastoralist Afar, where social protection is provided through grain distribution rather than public works, some respondents highlight that the programme is slow to respond to weather shocks. A 12- year-old boy from Zone 5 (Afar) explained his experience:

We lost hope as if we were dead at that time. The camels were brought and we survived by drinking camel milk. There was nothing that was given from the government during the drought. After the camels came and we started to get camel milk, government aid started.

The PSNP is informed by some of the specific challenges women and girls face. It includes a number of provisions addressing women’s needs as a result of gender and social norms in the community, family composition and decision-making. These include attention to specific economic vulnerabilities of female-headed households, access to childcare provisioning (so that women with young children can still work), flexibility in work times to account for women’s domestic and care responsibilities, and acknowledgement that women and men have different physical labour capacities. However, it is unclear how well these features are implemented in practice (see also Holmes & Jones, 2013). In addition to these measures, the PSNP includes special provisions for pregnant and breastfeeding women; they are exempt from public works and, in the most recent phase of the programme, linkages have been introduced for pregnant and breastfeeding women to access health and nutrition services. However, a key informant from South Gondar highlighted that there have been challenges in implementing these provisions due to fears of the consequences of reporting their pregnancy to officials, which can result in delays in receiving appropriate nutrition and health services:

Due to cultural reasons, pregnant women are afraid to inform the Development Army about the pregnancy. She has the right to inform the health extension worker and get proof and give it to the DA in order to be eligible to be exempted from public works. But, due to cultural barriers, many of them wait four months.

This supports previous studies, which found that some pregnant female beneficiaries are afraid to use these provisions due to fears they will no longer receive support (Devereux et al., 2006).

Although the PSNP has some gender-responsive features, it lacks age sensitivities. Key informants highlight that this is due to formal guidance that prevents individuals under the age of 18 being eligible for public works labour. A key informant from South Gondar explained: ‘There is no special preference given to adolescents as they are not expected to engage in any public work. They are addressed from the household perspective, otherwise there hasn’t been special provisions for them.’ However, although children and adolescents are not allowed to be involved in public works labour, in reality this is not always implemented. We found young adolescents taking part in the programme, substituting their labour for that of their parents, which could have impacts on their school attendance. In a group discussion with girls aged 15–19 with hearing disabilities from South Gondar, one girl explained: ‘I have been participating in terracing activities. It was by representing our parents. We have been getting wheat aid when we do terracing.’ This brings to light some indirect impacts of the PSNP that should be addressed.

Additional age-specific challenges stem from protracted delays in registering new beneficiaries in some areas, which left many newly married couples, including adolescents who married as children, unable to access the PSNP. A 17-year-old girl from East Hararghe, who has been married for two years, explained: ‘The kebele officials were registering people two years ago and at that time I was not married. They registered my husband, my baby and I three months ago. I received the money last week.’

Other barriers can also prevent people in need accessing the PSNP. Reports of corruption within the programme are not uncommon, and this can result in the most vulnerable households being excluded. As an 18-year-old boy from South Gondar commented: ‘You can see people included when they have many cattle, a lot of property and are very rich. But you can find very poor people who are not included … ’

Voice and agency

SDG 5.5 aims to achieve ‘women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life.’ Within climate action, empowering women to ensure their active participation is instrumental to developing the most effective climate solutions (Winthrop & Kajumba, 2018). However, strictly enforced gender norms in communities intersect with age barriers and result in adolescent girls facing substantial barriers to active participation in decision-making platforms. This was highlighted during participatory research exercises where adolescents were asked to discuss improvements that were needed in their communities. We found that in these discussions, boys – but not girls – were vocal in terms of the impacts of climate change and deforestation in their communities. One participant in a group discussion with boys aged 16–18 from South Gondar demonstrated detailed knowledge on these topics:

There is heavy deforestation in the area. As a result, the climate condition is changed. The temperature has been getting hot and there is seasonal rainfall variation. The rain doesn’t arrive on time, which shows fluctuation, and it is getting abnormal.

Participants also provided ideas for clear solutions to these issues. In a group discussion with boys aged 15–16 from Afar, one explained:

We want huge water tankers to accumulate water and to use it during the drought season or when there is no rain here. And if there is a tanker full of water, we will control and keep it and we will use it for ourselves and for our cattle when we lack rain.

By contrast, girls were unable to name problems and solutions as easily as boys, and had less to say on issues of climate change, partly due to their lower education levels and lack of confidence but also due to dominant gender norms that encourage female docility. A 15-year-old girl from South Gondar explained: ‘I said no when they selected me [to be team leader], I said no because I didn’t think I could.’ This suggests that as well as ensuring that girls have access to decision-making spaces, there is also need to foster the skills they need to actively participate and build confidence in taking on new roles.

At the community level, a number of structures are in place that respond and adapt to the impacts of climate change in the local area. Community meetings present a platform for discussing challenges related to climate change (such as lack of water, infrastructure issues and transport) and bring this to the attention of government. In a group discussion with boys aged 15–19 from East Hararghe, one explained how water shortages in the area were raised in these meetings as a priority: ‘Water shortage is the primary problem affecting this community. It is this issue that is mostly raised in the meetings. The people make pressure [on government] for the development of water points in this area.’ However, both age and gender barriers can disrupt access to these community discussions and decisions. Multiple adolescents highlighted that they were not allowed to participate as they were too young and not perceived to be able to contribute. As a 19-year-old married girl from East Hararghe noted: ‘No, they haven’t invited us [to participate in public meetings]. Only people who are older than me attend. We are not grown up enough for that responsibility.’ Yet it is children, adolescents and youth who are often more vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change and, if included in community discussion and decision-making fora, their voices and opinions could bring to light the age-specific consequences of climate change and offer insights into how to mitigate them.

In addition to the exclusion of youth, some women also face gendered barriers to attending these meetings. Although women’s participation in community meetings is increasing, we found that some married women lack decision-making power in the household and are prevented from attending the meetings by their husbands. Other participants highlighted that some women do not have time to take part in community meetings due to the burden of household chores. As a married 15-year-old girl explained: ‘There is a difference: most women spend time working, men have time to attend meetings.’

This gender divide is particularly strong in Zone 5 (Afar), where community members discuss responses to climate-related hazards in dagu – a traditional platform for information-sharing and decision-making, where, according to a participant in a group discussion for boys aged 15–16, ‘we solve our problems of drought’. Although both males and females participate in dagu, the topics of discussion are very different. While males discuss rains, migration and drought, females focus on what are perceived to be ‘female’ issues such as weddings and family matters, and do not discuss topics relating to climate change. As a participant in a group discussion with boys aged 15–18 explained: ‘They never talk about big social issues, like drought, migration, conflict with others … Boys use dagu to discuss societal issues, but girls do not.’

In East Hararghe, the regional youth movement known as ‘Qeerroo’ is involved in helping to stop deforestation in the area, as well as helping the community to respond to climate-related natural hazards (such as drought) and bringing to government attention some of the key issues the communities face in relation to climate change. As a 17-year-old male Qeerroo from East Hararghe explained:

They [Qeerroos] will make discussion on what problems the adolescents are facing. We will present the problems for the government and discuss what the concerned bodies need to do. We will discuss conditions of education, health, unemployment, land, climate change.

While these groups play an important role in helping the community and government respond to climate change in the area, they are primarily made up of male youth. Alongside strong gender norms, this can make it difficult for females in these communities to take up leadership and decision-making roles. This was highlighted by a 17-year-old girl from East Hararghe, who quit as leader of a Qarree group (female version of Qeerroos) as she felt she was not listened to by members of the community: ‘They accept the orders of males but they do not accept my orders, they did not accept my leadership, then I quit.’

Discussion

Our findings highlight the complex and contrasting linkages between climate action in Ethiopia and the targets of SDG 5 on gender equality. In this article we have examined three of GAGE’s six capability domains – bodily integrity and freedom from violence, economic empowerment, and voice and agency – in relation to these intersections using a gender and adolescence lens. In line with Holland’s (2008) argument that ecological conditions should be included as a meta-capability underpinning the achievement of other human capabilities, our findings highlight how climate change impacts threaten adolescent capabilities, and in particular those of adolescent girls. As such, adolescents in Ethiopia face diminished access to a just society through the indirect implications of climate-related hazards. This includes heightened risk of poverty and food insecurity, poor educational attendance and potential dropout, as well as increased risks of sexual and gender- based violence – in the course of water and fuelwood collection by adolescent girls and, more generally, in cases of climate and natural resource-related conflicts.

As we have highlighted, a number of adaptation and mitigation strategies have been implemented in Ethiopia to try and combat the direct and indirect implications of climate change. These range from nationwide mitigation strategies such as the Green Legacy Initiative, to community-level adaptation methods to respond to climate-related hazards such as drought. Our findings indicate that these strategies have had a number of positive impacts on gender equality by increasing access to water and other natural resources (and thus reducing time spent collecting water, as well as reducing conflicts that arise over scarce resources), and supporting food-insecure households in times of drought through a gender-sensitive social protection response.

Yet on the ground, it is clear that some challenges remain – for example, long delays in communities receiving water infrastructure and delays in registering new PSNP beneficiaries, which can ultimately disrupt the positive impacts of these strategies on progress towards meeting the SDG 5 targets. Our findings also suggest that there is a risk that measures to promote the ecological meta-capability may threaten other capabilities (Holland, 2008). We found some incidences where climate actions were having negative consequences for adolescents’ capabilities, such as adolescents substituting their labour for that of their parents on the PSNP, and the prohibition of community members cutting down trees to sell charcoal in times of drought. Thus the findings suggest that climate policies need to address these unintended consequences and ensure that effective responses to these challenges are included within climate action.

Although Ethiopia’s climate policies are gender-responsive, our findings indicate that they are less responsive to age. The prime example of this is the PSNP, which provides detailed gender considerations in its design and is informed by specific challenges facing women, but it does not account for some of the challenges facing adolescents.

Similarly, we found that both gender and age barriers can hinder meaningful access to climate-related leadership and decision-making platforms. Women and girls can be important agents of change within climate action due to their vulnerability to climate consequences and their unique knowledge of and perspectives on adaptation techniques (Winthrop & Kajumba, 2018; Pereznieto et al., 2020). This presents an opportunity to increase girls’ voice and agency through equal participation. Yet, due to age and gender power imbalances in the communities, we found significant challenges in achieving this.

Policy and programming implications

In order to ensure that the Ethiopian government’s policies contribute to attaining both SDG 13 targets on climate action and SDG 5 targets on gender inequality, some key actions are needed to accelerate progress. First, the findings have highlighted a lack of attention to age-related vulnerabilities within climate change policy and programming, compounded by gender norms that can result in adolescent girls being left behind by climate policies. As children and youth (particularly girls) are disproportionately impacted by climate change, it is vital to capture their unique experiences and perspectives. To ensure inclusive climate policies, adolescent participation in decision-making at all levels should be promoted. Education can also serve as a tool to increase adolescents’ awareness of climate-related issues, and should focus on challenging gender norms that may prevent girls taking up leadership roles and actively participating in climate action.

Likewise, although the PSNP is gender-sensitive (albeit with some challenges in implementation on the ground), it lacks attention to age-related vulnerabilities. The next phase of the programme should focus on ensuring that young married couples are not excluded, through more frequent registrations. There should also be stronger systems in place to prevent young people substituting for their parents’ labour in PSNP public works.

Finally, the nationwide Green Legacy Initiative and efforts to increase water infrastructure are contributing to both SDG 13 and SDG 5. However, delays in provision of water points for rural communities should be addressed by strengthening water infrastructure in communities that are hardest to reach (such as in Afar). It is also important that adaptation strategies do not further exacerbate existing tension and conflicts between ethnic groups over resources.

Limitations of the study

Although the study draws on a relatively large qualitative sample, to draw more robust conclusions, follow-up mixed-methods research could help to ascertain whether the links this paper has identified between climate mitigation and adaptation strategies are statistically significant. In addition, further key informant interviews with local officials from agriculture and food security bureaus at regional and district levels would be useful to enhance understanding of some of the policy implementation barriers, as well as entry points to fast-track change.

Conclusions

Low-income countries are increasingly experiencing the impacts of climate change. Thus, it is more important than ever to ensure that climate adaptation and mitigation policies do not have unintended negative consequences for already disadvantaged groups, including young people and women. This paper has presented both the positive and negative consequences of climate action in Ethiopia on adolescent capabilities and gender equality outcomes, specifically freedom from gender-based violence, economic empowerment, and voice and agency. This article has highlighted the importance of ensuring that climate policies are both age- and gender-responsive in order to deliver inclusive climate action. Through this approach, climate change policies can contribute to achieving both SDG 5 targets on gender equality and SDG 13 targets on climate action.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Kathryn O'Neill for her copy-editing work and the GAGE Ethiopia qualitative research team for their data collection efforts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

GAGE is a longitudinal research programme funded by Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) as part of UK aid.

Notes on contributors

Megan Devonald

Megan Devonald is a qualitative researcher for the Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (GAGE) programme. Her research interests include gender norms, sustainability and climate change research.

Nicola Jones

Dr Nicola Jones, is a Principal Research Fellow at ODI and is the Director of the Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (GAGE) programme. Her research focuses on gender, adolescence, social inclusion and social protection, primarily in East Africa and the MENA region.

Abreham Iyasu Gebru

Abreham Iyasu Gebru is based in Addis Ababa and currently attending a PhD program in Development Studies (Rural Development) in Addis Ababa University. Abreham has also graduated in multidiscipline, including, MA degree in Health Psychology, BSc degree in Health Communication, BA degree in Rural Development, BSc degree in Civil Engineering. Abreham has over 15 years of experience in Qualitative and Quantitative research. Currently, Abreham is serving as a Managing Director in Sublime Consultancy Service PLC based in Addis Ababa, and as a Qualitative Researcher for GAGE in Ethiopia.

Workneh Yadete

Workneh Yadete has a Master's degree in History from Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia. In the last 15 years, Workneh has been participating in wider ranges of qualitative and quantitative research and authored and co-authored a number of publications. He had coordinated a number of quantitative surveys run by international research institutions, such as the Young Lives, a 15 years longitudinal research led by the University of Oxford; the World Bank's research on Women in Agribusiness and Leadership Network; the impact of climate change on education led by Norad, the girls education challenge, etc.

Workneh has extensive experience on research uptake activities working with the government Ministries, international and local NGOs and UN agencies. Currently, he has been working as Country Research Uptake and Impact Coordinator and Qualitative Research Lead for the Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (GAGE), a nine years longitudinal research programme in the global south.

Notes

1 This article focuses on the gendered impacts of climate change on girls, but it is important to highlight that in some contexts boys may be more vulnerable (Sellers, 2016).

2 Nationally determined contributions (NDCs) with this rating are consistent with the global goal of warming to be under 2°C but not consistent with the goal to be under 1.5°C.

3 While being mindful that this should not place additional burdens on young people and should be entirely voluntary (UNDRR, 2020).