Using economic empowerment as a tool to increase women’s resilience to climate change and disasters

Abstract

As the effects of climate change continue to intensify, it is important to acknowledge that women disproportionately suffer the impacts. This is due to existing inequalities and multidimensional social factors in many developing countries, such as the unequal distribution of roles, resources and power. These barriers prevent women from being able to fully participate in economic activities and thus they are unable to be empowered economically, which is one of the prerequisites to enhance resiliency to cope with climate variability and change. This paper explores how increasing access to certain economic tools, such as access to credit, access to market and access to climate information, can empower and position women to better manage the effects of climate change on their livelihoods as well as those of their families and communities. Access to credit, markets, and climate information were among the most cited in literature as being the main barriers for women to fully participate in local-level economic and income generating activities. This paper defines the concepts of women’s economic empowerment and climate resiliency by drawing on literature and when linked together, these two concepts are a necessary step to take in the fight against climate change to build women’s resilience. The analysis concluded that access to credit builds resiliency of women by providing them with the financial capacity to adapt to and cope with climate shocks; accessing markets ensures that women are able to sell their products for a fair price and thus are able to generate higher income to sustain their livelihoods in the face of climate change; and receiving timely and accurate climate information empowers women to make informed decisions related to agricultural activities and avoid loss of income in light of unpredictable climate and weather-related events at the local level.