Gender matters - Climate Change Adaptation and Development: Transforming Paradigms and Practices - page 94

been included in farming extension training or educational programmes, even
though they comprise half of all the farmers on the continent. Adaptation projects
could also focus on narrowing the gender gap in local political leadership positions,
by encouraging women to run for political office in their rural communities.
Today's Kenyan and Tanzanian laws proclaim that political appointments are to
be based on gender equality, but in reality the majority of rural communities
lack female representation altogether. Increasing the political voice of women
where they live could enable them to influence the future development of their
communities and inspire other women to do the same. And lastly, projects could
target the development of alternative local financial institutions that could enable
individual as well as groups of farmers to save money in a safe way and take up
loans with collateral based on non-fiscal securities. Such institutions could then
facilitate the access to capital needed to invest in business ventures and agricultural
equipment that would diversify farmers' incomes and increase food production.
In particular, it could empower women to become financially independent of their
husbands/sons/brothers/brothers-in-law, thereby also bolstering their decision-
making power within their families.
If we are sincere about reducing climate vulnerability, we will need to
increase women's adaptive capacities. To do that, we must commit ourselves
to promoting radically different adaptation projects and policies in the future
compared to those in the past. This new approach must be based on the actual
needs and demands of people on the ground, instead of a supply-driven approach
constructed around a foreign-made standard blueprint for development as usual ,
since that not only risks reproducing the conditions of the most vulnerable,
but worse, coercing them into adopting strategies that may ultimately lead to
maladaptive outcomes (Adger et al. 2012; Bassey 2012).
Conclusions: yes, gender matters
Drawing on research conducted among smallholders living in the Lake Victoria
Basin (LVB) area, this chapter has shown that in order to reduce the climate
vulnerability currently felt by millions of smallholder farmers across rural sub-
Saharan Africa, it is first necessary to deal with the underlying causes of this
vulnerability. This will require in-depth knowledge of the specific cultural
context and circumstances, which only an expert in the social sciences can
uncover through repeated visits to the study context and by using a wide range
of data-collection methods.
From studying the social dimensions that delineate farmers' lives and
livelihoods in the LVB, this chapter has shown how the gender regime that
assigns gender-differentiated rights and responsibilities, combined with a moral
economy based on imposed social obligations, has tremendous bearing on the
disparities existing between women's and men's adaptive capacities to respond
to greater climate uncertainty. The chapter further highlights the importance
of a demand-driven approach to adaptation guided by gender-integrated