Participating under constraints: roles and limitations of rural women’s involvement in climate change adaptation planning and implementation in Ghana

ABSTRACT

Climate change persists despite growing attention from a wide range of disciplines. In its 2018 report, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) called for an urgent global response from all segments of society to counter the impact of climate change. Rural women in developing countries whose livelihoods largely depend on nature are among the most impacted by climate change. Thus, there is no justification for marginalizing rural women or any group in the fight against climate change. But existing literature shows little scientific knowledge on women’s participation in climate change project planning and implementation. This study examined rural women’s involvement and roles in climate change-related projects and the potential barriers therein. The analysis of in-depth interviews with relevant government officials and women from farmers’ and fishers’ groups showed that women are involved in climate change projects. But women’s involvement is inadequate and constrained by multiple, interlinked sociocultural and other structural challenges. Recommendations for advancing participatory development communication practice beyond stakeholder engagement to focus on strategies for navigating the hindrances to women and other target groups’ participation are offered.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate change
• adaptation
• participatory development
• gender
• sociocultural constraints

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 “The taungya system is an agroforestry intervention whereby farmers are given parcels of land from degraded forest reserves to produce food crops and to help re-establish and maintain timber plantations” (Adjei et al., 2020, p. 1188).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Paul Koomson

Paul Koomson is a doctoral candidate and a graduate teaching fellow at the School of Journalism and Communication, University of Oregon. His research interests lie at the intersection of strategic communication and environmental health and social change communication. He also studies the political economy underlying the PR/advertising–journalism relationship and CSR communication.