Article

A gendered perspective of vulnerability to multiple stressors, including climate change, in the rural Eastern Cape, South Africa

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Abstract

Rapid global environmental change combined with other stressors is increasing the vulnerability of poor people worldwide. In South Africa, HIV/AIDS and climate variability, interacting with other localised risks are having differential impacts across communities, households and individuals. These stressors have the effect of undermining livelihood assets, decreasing adaptive capacity and constraining the ability to respond to new threats such as those expected under a changing climate. This Article considers the gendered implications of multiple stressors on livelihoods drawing on empirical data from a four-year research project in two sites in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. The research was broadly framed within a livelihoods-entitlements approach and methods included a household survey, interviews and focus group discussions. Using data from these sources, this Article explores gender-differentiated vulnerability through an analysis of household livelihoods and assets, perceptions of vulnerability and food security, and the types of responses employed when faced with shocks and stress. Our findings indicate that although women and female-headed households are generally poorer and more at risk than men and male-headed households, in some situations women may be more innovative in their individual and collective responses to stressors and may have more social capital to draw on. Furthermore, men and male-headed households also face specific gender related vulnerabilities. We comment on the need to understand the underlying causes of vulnerability and the heterogeneity that exists at the local level, and consider how such knowledge can be translated into approaches that address vulnerability now and in the future.

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... After the KwaZulu-Natal floods, women saw themselves as "strong", and both men and women expressed a renewed determination to uplift themselves from poverty, relocate from riskier areas, and pursue education (Jewkes et al., 2023). In rural and peri-urban Eastern Cape, higher levels of cooperation and self-employment among female-headed households indicated women's readiness to adapt more than men (Shackleton et al., 2014). ...
... Women and female-headed households were found to be generally poorer than men, making them more vulnerable to climate change (Shackleton & Cobban, 2016;Flatø et al., 2017;Paumgarten, 2020). Government grants were crucial income, especially during crises (Paumgarten, 2020;Shackleton et al., 2014;Shackleton & Cobban, 2016). During the 2022 KwaZulu-Natal floods, many women relied on child support and basic income grants (Jewkes et al., 2023): one study found that 71% of women were unemployed and dependent on social grants (Nothling et al., 2023). ...
... The sex of a household head had varied impacts on vulnerability to climate change. Shackleton et al. (2014) used multiple household headship categories to analyse capital stocks across two sites, revealing nuances. They found male-headed households with adult females earned more from formal employment in peri-urban areas than in rural areas, while female-headed households were vulnerable due to lower earnings and capital ownership. ...
... The varied effects of climate change on men and women are determined by social norms and gender inequality in society (Omoeva, Hatch & Moussa, 2018;Cannon, 2002;Denton et al., 2019;Blum et al., 2013). Imbalanced power relations, both formal (as in institutions) and informal (as in communities and the private sphere), are at the foundation of women's disproportionate vulnerability relative to males (Cannon, 2002;Shackleton, Cobban & Cundill, 2014); UN Women, 2020). Studies have shown that women often face higher risks and greater challenges in coping with climate change impacts due to existing gender inequalities (Wen et al., 2023;Denton et al., 2019;Enarson, 2012;UN Women, 2020). ...
... While understanding women's experiences and vulnerabilities is essential, it is equally important to examine how inequalities contribute to vulnerabilities and, as a result, how gender relations contribute to the differentiated effects of climate change on women (Denton et al., 2019;Enarson, 2012). Addressing the broader gender dimensions of climate change requires considering the intersecting factors such as age, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and geographical location that shape women's experiences and capacities to adapt to and mitigate climate change impacts (Enarson, 2012;O'Brien, 2012;Shackleton, Cobban & Cundill, 2014). ...
... Incorporating gender analysis into climate change research and policy frameworks is crucial for understanding the gendered dimensions of vulnerability and resilience (Denton et al., 2019). It enables the identification of gender-specific needs, priorities, and capacities, and informs the development of gender-responsive and equitable climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies (Enarson, 2012;Shackleton, Cobban & Cundill, 2014;UN Women, 2020). Furthermore, acknowledging and addressing gender inequalities within climate change policies and interventions can contribute to more effective and sustainable outcomes, as it recognizes the importance of gender equality in building resilience and achieving sustainable development goals (Wen et al., 2023;Denton et al., 2019;UN Women, 2020). ...
Chapter
This study investigates the importance of gender-inclusive climate change education programs and the challenges involved with designing such curriculum in rural Sindh, Pakistan. The study addresses three research areas: (1) perspectives and consequences of gender inclusivity in climate change education, (2) gender inclusivity's effect the efficacy and success of Sindh's rural climate change education initiatives, and (3) the hurdles to attaining gender equality in sustainable climate change education and its effect on the overall effectiveness of such initiatives. The qualitative research method was applied, and interviews were conducted from eight leading educationist in Pakistan. The findings show that women face various hurdles in climate change education, including restricted access to education, societal norms, and cultural barriers. However, research identifies various tactics and recommendations to improve gender inclusion, such as the promotion of female role models from best practices, the incorporation of gender viewpoints in curricula, as well as programs to empower women.
... Shackleton et al. [47] Households' sensitivity is a function of livelihood activities, poverty levels, and asset holdings. ...
... As established from the review, the type and nature of livelihood activities practised by households in rural areas result in variations in sensitivity and resilience to climate change. For example, Shackleton et al. [47] established that households that derive most of their income from government grants and self-employment were more susceptible than those from formal employment. This explanation is in line with Mildrexler et al. [55]. ...
... This finding corresponds to the traditional views of the binary male-female view of the gender dimension of susceptibility to climate change that women are passive victims of climate change [56]. However, Shackleton et al. [47] posit that although women may appear more susceptible to climate change than men, men are also susceptible because they rely more on livestock production as their main source of income, which is sensitive to climate change impacts. However, despite this being the case, Chikulo [51] explored the gender, climate change, and energy linkages in South Africa and observed that there are differences in sensitivity to climate change among women. ...
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Evidence is unequivocal that rural and urban areas in South Africa are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change; however, impacts are felt disproportionately. This difference in vulnerability between rural and urban areas is presently unclear to guide context-based climate policies and frameworks to enhance adaptation processes. A clear understanding of the differences in vulnerability to climate change between rural and urban areas is pertinent. This systematic review aimed to explore how vulnerability to climate change varies between rural and urban areas and what explains these variations. The approach was guided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change vulnerability framework incorporating exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity dimensions integrated into the Sustainable Livelihood Framework. The review used 30 articles based on the search criteria developed. The findings show differences in vulnerability to climate change between rural and urban areas owing to several factors that distinguish rural from urban areas, such as differences in climate change drivers, infrastructure orientation, typical livelihood, and income-generating activities. We conclude that vulnerability varies with location and requires place-based analyses. Instead of blanket policy recommendations, localized interventions that enhance adaptation in specific rural and urban areas should be promoted.
... However, the literature has been largely silent on the potential gender-based variations in this coping (Hodge and Roby, 2010). While there is a growing body of work which focuses on gender and climate change (see, for example, Mnimbo et al., 2016, Shackleton et al., 2014, Van Aelst and Holvoet, 2016, Ravera et al., 2016, Flatø et al., 2017, Mehar et al., 2016, Jost et al., 2016, Thompson-Hall et al., 2016, there is limited research that investigates the ways in which different men and women act within existing gender norms to mitigate livelihoodrelated risks (Bandali, 2014) and manage shocks (Van Aelst and Holvoet, 2016). ...
... The case of Margaret demonstrates the critical role of social capital in the women's management of shocks (Shackleton et al., 2014). As in the case of borrowing land, these costsharing arrangements were made possible and sustained through social relations of trust and reciprocity. ...
... Women's use of local connections is explained by Goldstein (1999), as being because women are more intra-community focused, while men are more likely to possess the extensive networks stretching beyond the community. It could be argued further that such behaviour may be partly the function of the social structural conditions that dictate the spatial limits of women (Shackleton et al., 2014), particularly those who have responsibilities for the care of children and other relatives (Akampumuza and Matsuda, 2016). ...
Article
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We examine the gendered responses to shocks – including HIV-related illness and death, and environmental factors such as drought or too much rain – and how women in south western Uganda navigate structural barriers such as the gender constraints in land ownership, to cope with the impact of shocks. The study is based on data drawn from households selected from a General Population Cohort of 20,000 people in Kalungu District. As part of a larger study investigating the impact of HIV on agricultural livelihoods, 22 households were purposively sampled for a qualitative study. These households were stratified by sex of household head and by a death having occurred/not occurred of an HIV-positive individual in the household. Our findings show the gendered dimensions in household responses to crises are shaped by women and men’s position in the social structure in general and within their families and households. Women can make effective use of their social relations to obtain material support and information to improve their family’s livelihood.
... Men often left the interviews to the women in the household. For some analyses, we disaggregated the data by gender structure (based on the sex of household head and adult members) and wealth categories (see [32]). These data provided a holistic picture of household income shares, livelihood activities and community and household assets. ...
... Thus, the grant system puts money in the hands of some but not others. Interestingly, in our study sites it was only young males, especially those living alone, who were food insecure [32]. Dubbeld [49] further writes about how some of his informants perceived grants as "socially corrosive," destroying family values, morals and traditions such as marriage, absolving men of their parental responsibilities and contributing to disrespect of elders by the youth. ...
... Generally, family members may assist in preventing destitution, but usually cannot do much more because they also lack resources (Table 8) [62]. A general decline in social capital was identified in our study sites [30], although female-headed households seemed to have more social capital than those headed by men [32]. ...
Article
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This paper seeks to understand the drivers and pathways of local livelihood change and the prospects for transformation towards a more sustainable future. Data are used from several studies, and a participatory social learning process, which formed part of a larger project in two sites in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Secondary information from a wealth of related work is used to place our results within the historic context and more general trends in the country. Findings indicate that livelihoods in the rural Eastern Cape are on new trajectories. Agricultural production has declined markedly, at a time when the need for diversification of livelihoods and food security seems to be at a premium. This decline is driven by a suite of drivers that interact with, and are influenced by, other changes and stresses affecting local livelihoods. We distil out the factors, ranging from historical processes to national policies and local dynamics, that hamper peoples’ motivation and ability to respond to locally identified vulnerabilities and, which, when taken together, could drive households into a trap. We end by considering the transformations required to help local people evade traps and progress towards a more promising future in a context of increasing uncertainty.
... Men often left the interviews to the women in the household. For some analyses, we disaggregated the data by gender structure (based on the sex of household head and adult members) and wealth categories (see [32]). These data provided a holistic picture of household income shares, livelihood activities and community and household assets. ...
... Thus, the grant system puts money in the hands of some but not others. Interestingly, in our study sites it was only young males, especially those living alone, who were food insecure [32]. Dubbeld [49] further writes about how some of his informants perceived grants as "socially corrosive," destroying family values, morals and traditions such as marriage, absolving men of their parental responsibilities and contributing to disrespect of elders by the youth. ...
... Generally, family members may assist in preventing destitution, but usually cannot do much more because they also lack resources (Table 8) [62]. A general decline in social capital was identified in our study sites [30], although female-headed households seemed to have more social capital than those headed by men [32]. ...
Article
Full-text available
This paper seeks to understand the drivers and pathways of local livelihood change and the prospects for transformation towards a more sustainable future. Data are used from several studies, and a participatory social learning process, which formed part of a larger project in two sites in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Secondary information from a wealth of related work is used to place our results within the historic context and more general trends in the country. Findings indicate that livelihoods in the rural Eastern Cape are on new trajectories. Agricultural production has declined markedly, at a time when the need for diversification of livelihoods and food security seems to be at a premium. This decline is driven by a suite of drivers that interact with, and are influenced by, other changes and stresses affecting local livelihoods. We distil out the factors, ranging from historical processes to national policies and local dynamics, that hamper peoples' motivation and ability to respond to locally identified vulnerabilities and, which, when taken together, could drive households into a trap. We end by considering the transformations required to help local people evade traps and progress towards a more promising future in a context of increasing uncertainty.
... Scientific insight and systematic analysis are important but the nature of the issue urges the integration of gender studies for proper understanding (Below et al., 2012;McCright, 2010). For example, Women's knowledge is based upon necessities, such as food, water security, illness and disease of livestock and family (Idris, 2021;Shackleton et al., 2014). Studies have shown that rural women interact more with their physical environment and are disproportionately more affected by environmental degradation (Anjum & Fraser, 2021). ...
... Particularly, women in rural Pakistan, acquire essential knowledge based on their personal experiences that aid them in creating a resilience system for themselves for necessary survival. In the last decade, there has been a strong emphasis on studies on the interaction of gender and climate change, particularly on vulnerability analysis and risk perception (Shackleton et al., 2014), usage of and access to natural, technological and financial resources (Kovaleva et al., 2021). However, there is a significant gap exist in the literature in the case of Pakistan. ...
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Understanding climate change through knowledge and researching its level of awareness is critical for building resilience in vulnerable populations. Climate change comprehension is not a gender-neutral construct. This paper aims to investigate women's perceptions of climate change in rural and urban Sindh, Pakistan, as it is one of the ten most vulnerable countries to climate change. This study also looks into the sources of local women's climate change awareness and knowledge. The study employed a mixed methodology approach, with 400 women from urban and rural areas polled for quantitative data and subject/field experts interviewed to validate the findings using informed opinion. According to the study's findings, women in Sindh, Pakistan, are aware of climate change, but their sources of awareness are secondary, and their knowledge is based on personal experience. Therefore, the study recommends robust government initiatives to raise climate change awareness among women across the country. ARTICLE HISTORY
... women and children) often fear for their personal safety while harvesting natural resources, since wooded or "wild" areas are sometimes perceived to be associated with crime (de Neergaard et al. 2005;Shackleton et al. , 2019aManyani et al. 2021). These concerns limit access to ecosystem services for the many female-headed households in the southern African region, and are often an additional driver of inequity and vulnerability in already highly unequal communities (Shackleton et al. 2014). Redressing inequalities needs careful consideration of the heterogeneity of both landscapes and people, and must account for the diverse and multi-functional ways in which ecosystem services are co-produced in the southern African region, as well as their diverse and plural values (Masterson et al. 2019a;Clements et al. 2021). ...
... In southern Africa, research on social-ecological regime shifts has highlighted the impacts of these shifts on ecosystems and human well-being, particularly in the context of SES in poor, rural settings (Shackleton et al. 2014Blair et al. 2018). There has also been work on potential pathways to maintain or transform SES towards desired states (Luvuno et al. 2018;Achieng et al. 2020). ...
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Social-ecological systems (SES) research has emerged as an important area of sustainability science, informing and supporting pressing issues of transformation towards more sustainable, just and equitable futures. To date, much SES research has been done in or from the Global North, where the challenges and contexts for supporting sustainability transformations are substantially different from the Global South. This paper synthesises emerging insights on SES dynamics that can inform actions and advance research to support sustainability transformations specifically in the southern African context. The paper draws on work linked to members of the Southern African Program on Ecosystem Change and Society (SAPECS), a leading SES research network in the region, synthesizing key insights with respect to the five core themes of SAPECS: (i) transdisciplinary and engaged research, (ii) ecosystem services and human well-being, (iii) governance institutions and management practices, (iv) spatial relationships and cross-scale connections, and (v) regime shifts, traps and transformations. For each theme, we focus on insights that are particularly novel, interesting or important in the southern African context, and reflect on key research gaps and emerging frontiers for SES research in the region going forward. Such place-based insights are important for understanding the variation in SES dynamics around the world, and are crucial for informing a context-sensitive global agenda to foster sustainability transformations at local to global scales.
... Bunched or repeated shocks can result in increased vulnerability for future crises (Matthews, 2012;Leppert, 2015). A high degree of exposure to shocks and stressors may reduce communities' future adaptive capacities (Shackleton et al., 2014;Villanueva, 2010). By contrast, resilient communities show a high capacity for adaptation and are able to maintain or retain their essential functions even in the case of extreme weather events (Edenhofer, 2014). ...
... Furthermore, vulnerability to climate change arises from certain socio-economic conditions, such as the economic capability of households or the existing infrastructure (Shackleton et al., 2014). While a typhoon may completely destroy the harvest of a rural farmer, resulting in debt and poverty, an urban resident whose shop is destroyed may find employment in a local factory. ...
Technical Report
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Disaster resilience is a topic of increasing importance for policy makers in the context of climate change. However, measuring disaster resilience remains a challenge as it requires information on both the physical environment and socioeconomic dimensions. In this study we developed and tested a method to use remote sensing (RS) data to construct proxy indicators of socioeconomic change. We employed machine-learning algorithms to generate land-cover and land-use classifications from very high-resolution satellite imagery to appraise disaster damage and recovery processes in the Philippines following the devastation of typhoon Haiyan in November 2013. We constructed RS-based proxy indicators for N=20 barangays (villages) in the region surrounding Tacloban City in the central east of the Philippines. We then combined the RS-based proxy indicators with detailed socioeconomic information collected during a rigorous-impact evaluation by DEval in 2016. Results from a statistical analysis demonstrated that fastest post-disaster recovery occurred in urban barangays that received sufficient government support (subsidies), and which had no prior disaster experience. In general, socio-demographic factors had stronger effects on the early recovery phase (0-2 years) compared to the late recovery phase (2-3 years). German development support was related to recovery performance only to some extent. Rather than providing an in-depth statistical analysis, this study is intended as a proof-of-concept. We have been able to demonstrate that high-resolution RS data and machine-learning techniques can be used within a mixed-methods design as an effective tool to evaluate disaster impacts and recovery processes. While RS data have distinct limitations (e.g., cost, labour intensity), they offer unique opportunities to objectively measure physical, and by extension socioeconomic , changes over large areas and long timescales.
... Communities themselves often do not distinguish between the stressors that impact their livelihoods and the factors that prevent them from responding to shocks and risk. 31 Biesbroek et al. (p. 1119) argue that the list of possible barriers is 'seemingly endless'. ...
... Political short-termism makes it hard to plan for longer term changes in climate. 31 Linked to this, Conway and Schipper 17 suggest that discourses and policies that take a disaster-focused, short-term view of climate variability and that focus on transient food insecurity and relief can act as a barrier to a longer term perspective that emphasizes sustainable adaptation, livelihood security, and resilience. They also argue that the perception of climate change as an environmental issue rather than a broad development issue, as observed, e.g., in Ethiopia's government, results in it being sidelined, thus constituting a barrier to action; this is echoed for Botswana 100 and South Africa 38,77,126 Indeed, the isolation of adaptation policy from broader development discourses, policies, and initiatives serves to obscure the interrelations between generic and specific adaptive capacity and block local-level adaptation in Southern Africa. ...
Article
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To enhance understanding of the process of climate change adaptation and to facilitate the planning and implementation of socially‐just adaptation strategies, deeper consideration of the factors that impede adaptation is required. In response, scholars have increasingly identified barriers to adaptation in the literature. But, despite this progress, knowledge of barriers that hamper adaptation in developing countries remains limited, especially in relation to underlying causes of vulnerability and low adaptive capacity. To further improve understanding of barriers to adaptation and identify gaps in the state‐of‐the‐art knowledge, we undertook a synthesis of empirical literature from sub‐Saharan Africa focusing on vulnerable, natural resource‐dependent communities and livelihoods. Our review illustrates that: (1) local‐level studies that reveal barriers to adaptation are diverse, although there is a propensity for studies on small‐holder farmers; (2) many of the studies identify several barriers to adaptation, but appreciation of their interactions and compounded impacts remains scarce; and (3) most of the barriers uncovered relate broadly to biophysical, knowledge, and financial constraints on agricultural production and rural development. More hidden and under‐acknowledged political, social, and psychological barriers are rarely mentioned, unless captured in studies that specifically set out to investigate these. We finish our review by highlighting gaps in understanding and by suggesting future research directions, focusing on issues of social justice. We argue that research on barriers needs to start asking why these barriers emerge, how they work together to shape adaptation processes, who they affect most, and what is needed to overcome them. WIREs Clim Change 2015, 6:321–344. doi: 10.1002/wcc.335 This article is categorized under: Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change > Learning from Cases and Analogies
... At the local level, government policies, laws and regulations may act as roadblocks to adaption. Short-termism in politics makes it difficult to plan for long-term climate change (Shackleton et al. 2014). According to Conway and Schipper (2011), government discourses and policies that focus on temporary food insecurity and relief and take a disaster-oriented approach to climatic variability can be a drawback to a longer-term strategy that prioritises long-term adaptation, resilience and livelihood security. ...
Chapter
Climate change has caused significant ecosystem degradation and seriously threatens environmental sustainability. South Africa, including KwaZulu Natal and other provinces, is experiencing climate change challenges that result in adverse effects such as extreme weather conditions, heatwaves, drought and floods. This study aims to critically review KwaZulu Natal’s position towards climate action, providing relevant context to the current development and challenges and highlighting government strategies for combating the adverse effects of climate change. By analysing secondary sources, this study reviews key trends and developments in climate action in KwaZulu Natal. It is clear from this study that integrating climate change policies into national sustainable development strategies is crucial for their effectiveness. These policies should be part of broader systems to make national development trajectories more sustainable.
... These frequent variations in rainfall induces massive losses of livelihood resources that often increase poverty, food insecurity and conflict, particularly in communities that depends heavily on rain-fed agriculture and natural resources (Fafchamps, Udry & Czukas, 1998;Trogrlić, Wright, Adeloye, Duncan, & Mwale, 2018). The resultant shocks induced by these extreme events might have differential impacts across communities, households, social groups and individuals depending largely on their contexts, livelihood activities, assets and capabilities (Shackleton, Cobban & Cundill, 2014). However, evidence regarding the vulnerability status of female in comparison to male remains ambiguous, often related to the heterogeneous nature of the society put into context (see Duflo, 2012;Dre`ze & Srinivasan, 1997;Klasen, Lechtenfeld, & Povel, 2015 for review). ...
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Abstract: This article summarizes the current state of understanding the financial derivative market in Nigeria. It starts by providing a general introduction to the derivatives market. Consequently, the definition of the derivatives market was considered alongside its evolution. The work examined the current developments in the use of derivatives in Nigeria. The four (4) categories of derivatives in the Nigerian market which are forward, future, swaps, and options were discussed. The study consequently examined seven uses of derivatives among which are to enhance liquidity, to lead the market towards perfection and to catalyze the growth of financial markets. Five issues limiting the use of derivatives in Nigeria were also discussed; regulatory issue and issue relating to trust and use of technology were prominent. The review concludes by proffering remedies and recommendations to help mitigate and eliminate some of the identified challenges to the growth of the derivative market in Nigeria.
... The linkages between climate compatible development and gender equality stem from the important role played by gender relations in defining social, cultural, economic, political and private spheres of life, which in turn affect the capacity and vulnerability of different individuals towards development challenges, including climate change. An increasing body of knowledge is available on the role of gender as one of the key drivers behind vulnerability to climate-related shocks and stressors [9][10][11][12] . For example, many of the ways in which disasters affect men and women differently are well documented 13,14 . ...
... There is overwhelming evidence to suggest that climate change has occurred at an unprecedented rate and will continue well beyond the 21 st century, even if the world's carbon dioxide emissions are currently halted (Anyadike 2009). While various sectors of the global economy have been adversely affected by climate change, farming in Sub-Saharan Africa is arguably one of the worst affected (Shackleton et al. 2014, Ebhuoma et al. 2019. From the results, farmers in uMshwati and Capricorn municipalities were acutely aware of climate change as they had become victims of its adverse impact. ...
Article
Climate variability has adversely compromised food production in South Africa, with severe consequences for the livelihood of smallholder farmers. However, the extent to which adaptation has enabled rural farmers to continue earning their livelihoods has received limited attention. This paper addresses this knowledge gap by examining the constraints faced in food production and the coping strategies adopted by these farmers in responding to climate variability and change. A mixed research approach (primary and secondary) was used to obtain data from the municipalities of Capricorn and uMshwati in Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal provinces, South Africa. Structured questionnaires, focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews were used to obtain primary data, while internet, libraries and organizational reports were consulted to obtain secondary data. Results showed that rain-fed agriculture was the most common type of farming (60%), compared to irrigation farming (40%). Furthermore, 25% (8/30 respondents) of smallholder farmers practising mixed cropping had been involved in agriculture for more than a decade. Smallholder farmers have adopted mitigating strategies ranging from social adjustments at the household level and combining food production with off-farm activities to sustain their livelihoods and overall wellbeing. This study argues that an enabling environment will facilitate the ability of rural farmers to adapt to climate variability in the local context and present beneficial socio-economic dynamics within the small-scale agricultural food production sector.
... In this light, therefore, the notion that social grants alone might set rural households on the trajectory to successfully building their resilience to extreme climatic conditions in an agrarian society may be grossly flawed. Thus, securing additional source(s) of income to generate residual income is crucial to give households agency to prevent their livestock from being susceptible to the adverse effects of drought (see also S. Shackleton et al. 2014). ...
Research
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The ESRC STEPS (Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability) Centre carries out interdisciplinary global research uniting development studies with science and technology studies. Our pathways approach links theory, research methods and practice to highlight and open up the politics of sustainability. We focus on complex challenges like climate change, food systems, urbanisation and technology in which society and ecologies are entangled. Our work explores how to better understand these challenges and appreciate the range of potential responses to them.
... The literature indicates that different types of households will be affected differently by the impacts of climate change (Babugura, Mtshali, & Mtshali, 2010), with issues linked to gender inequality and, specifically, the marginalisation of women which is central to vulnerability to climate-related shocks and stressors (Djoudi & Brockhaus, 2011;Shackleton, Cobban, & Cundill, 2014). In this study we unpack the complexities of climate change, gender, and natural resource use within and across different gender-structured household types through an understanding of power dynamics and the role of culture in natural resource access and use, using the Baka community in Cameroon as a study (Permunta, 2013). ...
Conference Paper
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With the impact of climate change, men and women could be affected differently due to place-specific circumstances in the environment. The study examined the role of culture within households and minority groups, and its impact on livelihood outcome for different household types, taking power relations into consideration. A mixed method approach was used to provide a complete analysis of the objectives. The results indicate that culture affects gender structured households differently and highlights the challenges faced by marginalised forest-dependent communities whose culture is often not understood within the climate change discourse.
... The literature indicates that different types of households will be affected differently by the impacts of climate change (Babugura, Mtshali, & Mtshali, 2010), with issues linked to gender inequality and, specifically, the marginalisation of women which is central to vulnerability to climate-related shocks and stressors (Djoudi & Brockhaus, 2011;Shackleton, Cobban, & Cundill, 2014). In this study we unpack the complexities of climate change, gender, and natural resource use within and across different gender-structured household types through an understanding of power dynamics and the role of culture in natural resource access and use, using the Baka community in Cameroon as a study (Permunta, 2013). ...
Conference Paper
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Climate change adaptation is a cross-cutting issue, which in practice tends to be mainstreamed into other sectorial policies. However, due to the increasing activity within the field, the question of whether adaptation should constitute a new field of policy, arises. The aim of this paper is to discuss if adaptation should become a new field of policy or if it should be mainstreamed into other sectoral policies, and what the implications of each of the two options are. To this end, it studies the case of Mexico as a developing country.
... The literature indicates that different types of households will be affected differently by the impacts of climate change (Babugura, Mtshali, & Mtshali, 2010), with issues linked to gender inequality and, specifically, the marginalisation of women which is central to vulnerability to climate-related shocks and stressors (Djoudi & Brockhaus, 2011;Shackleton, Cobban, & Cundill, 2014). In this study we unpack the complexities of climate change, gender, and natural resource use within and across different gender-structured household types through an understanding of power dynamics and the role of culture in natural resource access and use, using the Baka community in Cameroon as a study (Permunta, 2013). ...
Conference Paper
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Nordic farmers are tackling climate risks with adaptation measures that also hold potential of negative outcomes ranging from economic and ecological losses to food insecurity. These adaptation processes are yet scarcely studied. In this study, the risk perceptions, adaptation assessments and adaptive actions of Finnish farmers are examined through interviewing farmers and extension officers. With a qualitative take on adaptation decision-making, the study shows how climate risk perceptions generate adaptive action in Nordic agriculture.
... In this study, the result suggests that bushmeat selling is a womendominated activity. Women were more at risk and vulnerable than men in dealing with the stressors in livelihood but in some situations, women may be more innovative in their individual and collective responses and may have the more social capital to draw on (Shackleton et al., 2014) and invite more buyers. In the post-Ebola time in Nigeria, bushmeat trading became a risky business due to the possibility of human exposure to zoonotic infection (Bachand et al., 2012). ...
Article
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Bushmeat enterprise is an activity with the potential to improve household livelihood. However, the Ebola virus disease outbreak in Nigeria in 2014 altered the business. This study assessed the welfare status of 134 bushmeat traders in three agro-ecological zones in Kwara State, Nigeria. This study used the descriptive design. The purposive sampling technique in the selection of respondents and the stratified random sampling in selecting the markets from the zones were used. The proportion of bushmeat sellers in each market determined the number of respondents selected per zone. Descriptive statistics, FGT (Foster, Greer, and Thorbecke) index and the multiple regression model were the tools of analysis. The results revealed that majority of bushmeat sellers were women, constituting 59.7% of the population. The mean per capita expenditure of the household was ₦14,004, and breakdown of the consumption expenditure showed that food represents the highest share (28.53%). The FGT index revealed that 35.8% of the sampled bushmeat traders were poor. Determinants of welfare status of traders were their total household size, years of experience, income from bushmeat sales, and revenue from other sources. This study suggests measures needed to improve the welfare status of bushmeat traders in the study area considering the effect Ebola outbreak had on their well-being.
... Recognizing that weather events can provoke shocks to agricultural productivity, food security, and income, these studies nevertheless did not include climate variability in the analyses. For South Africa there are two mainly qualitative case studies that have identified femaleheaded households as particularly vulnerable to climate variability, one from the Eastern Cape (Shackleton, Cobban, & Cundill, 2014) and one from Limpopo province (Vincent, 2007). These two studies also pointed to single male-headed households as being especially vulnerable. ...
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Existing gender inequality is believed to be heightened as a result of weather events and climate-related disasters that are likely to become more common in the future. We show that an already marginalized group—female-headed households in South Africa—is differentially affected by relatively modest levels of variation in rainfall, which households experience on a year-to-year basis. Data from three waves of the National Income Dynamics Survey in South Africa allow us to follow incomes of 4,162 households from 2006 to 2012. By observing how household income is affected by variation in rainfall relative to what is normally experienced during the rainy season in each district, our study employs a series of naturally occurring experiments that allow us to identify causal effects. We find that households where a single head can be identified based on residency or work status are more vulnerable to climate variability than households headed by two adults. Single male-headed households are more vulnerable because of lower initial earnings and, to a lesser extent, other household characteristics that contribute to economic disadvantages. However, this can only explain some of the differential vulnerability of female-headed households. This suggests that there are traits specific to female-headed households, such as limited access to protective social networks or other coping strategies, which makes this an important dimension of marginalization to consider for further research and policy in South Africa and other national contexts. Households headed by widows, never-married women, and women with a non-resident spouse (e.g., “left-behind” migrant households) are particularly vulnerable. We find vulnerable households only in districts where rainfall has a large effect on agricultural yields, and female-headed households remain vulnerable when accounting for dynamic impacts of rainfall on income.
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Gendered livelihood impacts and responses to an invasive, transboundary weed in a rural Ethiopian community Abstract Gender as unequal power relations intersects with global environmental change threatening agriculture-based livelihoods, including land degradation, increasing climate variability, and invasive alien plants. Commonly overlooked, invasive alien plants may have gendered impacts on everyday life that disproportionately affect the less powerful. Drawing on experiences of smallholder farmers in Ethiopia’s Oromia region with an invasive, transboundary weed, Parthenium hysterophorus L., this paper illustrates how environmental change interacts with pre-existing vulnerabilities to shape individual and household-level impacts and responses. We applied a feminist perspective in livelihoods and environmental change research and praxis to explore the intersection of gendered livelihoods and parthenium management in spaces of everyday life. While invasive plants, including parthenium, may be easily perceptible in the field, understanding impacts on livelihoods requires consideration of women’s and men’s roles and responsibilities within the broader household compound as well as intra-household decision-making. Parthenium can be harmful to environmental, animal, and human health, but unduly impacts women’s labor, spaces, and assets, including cows whose milk may be tainted by grazing in parthenium-infested fields. We demonstrate the importance of considering women’s social networks and so-called reproductive space and labor to understand gendered and place-based inequities of climate change. This study reveals intimate connections between environmental stressors and gendered livelihoods. Our findings demonstrate how inequalities can be reinforced by new forms of vulnerability, with response options socially differentiated. We argue that a feminist livelihood lens helps bridge the global scale of environmental change with local scales of gendered livelihood adaptation embedded within broader socio-environmental change. Key words: livelihoods, adaptation, gendered space, everyday life, house-lot garden, Parthenium hysterophorus L.
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This paper examines social differences and drought vulnerability among subsistence livestock farmers in Mpakeni, Mpumalanga province, South Africa. This paper asks, how do social differences between households and power relations shape vulnerability to drought? This is against the backdrop that parallel exposure to climatic risks does not translate to similar vulnerability among households residing in the same community. In-depth interviews were used to obtain primary data from purposively selected participants in Mpakeni. Some key findings reveal that being a non-local elite, a migrant settler and some female-headed households, especially those burdened by the additional tasks of caregiving, amplifies the challenges of securing forage when depleted in communal grazing fields. This is partly due to reduced time allocated to shepherding their livestock to the bank of a local river. Also, non-local elite and those who lacked social ties to the headman found it difficult to get compensated when their livestock were eaten by wild animal upon illegal entry to a game reserve rich in vegetation. This paper argues that vulnerability studies that focus independently on issues like gender, ethnicity and class may miss the dynamics that shape individuals’ vulnerability to drought, which could have severe consequences for implementing effective interventions.
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Wild foods are an integral component of the household food basket, yet their quantified contribution to food security relative to other sources in the context of HIV/AIDS, climate change and variability remains underexplored. This study was carried out in Willowvale and Lesseyton which are rural communities in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. Willowvale is a relatively remote, medium-rainfall coastal community, while Lesseyton is a peri-urban low rainfall inland community. Qualitative and quantitative methods were used to collect data from 78 HIV/AIDS afflicted households with 329 individuals and 87 non-afflicted households with 365 individuals in the two study sites. Households were visited quarterly over 12 months to assess food acquisition methods, dietary intake and quality, and levels of food security, and to determine strategies employed by households to cope with droughts. The wild foods investigated were wild meat, wild birds, wild fish, wild mushrooms, wild leafy vegetables and wild fruits. Diets were moderately well-balanced and limited in variety, with cereal items contributing 52 % to total calorie intake. Mid-upper arm circumference measurements showed that all respondents were adequately nourished. The bulk of the food consumed by households was purchased, with supplementation from own production, wild vegetables and wild fruits. In Willowvale, wild vegetables comprised 46 % of overall vegetable consumption for afflicted households and 32 % for non-afflicted households, while own fruit production comprised 100 % of fruit consumption. In Lesseyton, wild vegetables comprised only 6 % and 4 % of vegetable consumption for afflicted and non-afflicted households, while wild fruit comprised 63 % and 41 % for afflicted and non-afflicted households. More than 80 % of respondents from both afflicted and non-afflicted households had sufficient daily kilocalories, although the majority of afflicted households felt they were food insecure and sometimes collected wild foods as one of their multiple coping strategies. Hunting and gathering of wild foods was associated with site, household affliction status, gender, age and season. More than 80 % of respondents ate wild vegetables and said they were more drought tolerant than conventional vegetables, making them the most consumed wild food and approximately 16 % of respondents ate wild birds, making them the least consumed wild food. Approximately 14 % of respondents from afflicted households in Willowvale sold wild fish, whilst 34 % of respondents from afflicted households and 7 % from non-afflicted households sold wild fruits in Lesseyton. Strategies adopted by households to cope with droughts were different between the two study sites, and households in Willowvale used a wider range of strategies. Given the devastating effects of HIV/AIDS coupled with the drawbacks of climate change and variability on food security, wild foods represent a free and easy way for vulnerable households to obtain food. Keywords: HIV/AIDS, climate change, climate variability, food security, wild foods, vulnerable
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The need to address both poverty and vulnerability to climate change can be considered two of the major challenges facing human society in the 21st century. While the two concepts are closely interconnected, they are nonetheless distinct. A conceptual understanding of the relationship between vulnerability and poverty is presented, and the types of responses that can address both of these challenges are identified. An empirical example from Kenya is used to show how climate change adaptation can potentially reconcile the objectives of both poverty reduction and vulnerability reduction. Significantly, each and every poverty reduction measure does not reduce vulnerability to climate change, just as each and every adaptation measure does not automatically contribute to poverty reduction. It is argued that adaptation measures need to specifically target vulnerability—poverty linkages. Although most adaptation efforts have been focused on reducing risk, there is a need to address local capacity to adapt, as well as the societal processes generating vulnerability. An implication is that the mode of implementing adaptation measures must capture the specificity of both the vulnerability and poverty context. Furthermore, adaptation is not simply a local activity, since targeting the processes generating vulnerability and poverty often entails addressing political and economic structures.
Book
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This handbook presents the experience of a participatory social learning process that evolved to support individual and community level adaptation to the myriad of stressors affecting rural people. While the social learning process is presented as a ‘package,’ this is more out of convenience than attempting to represent a perfect model. In other words, genuinely responsive social learning processes may well vary in content, but possibly not in core features from what is presented here. This handbook should therefore be considered as a framework to guide thinking and reflection around how such processes might unfold, and further provide guidance towards possible approaches and activities that may be appropriate in some circumstances. The most critical factor emerging through the experience of this social learning process is how facilitators see their roles and their relationships with participants. It is essential to strive for a balance between responsiveness and guidance, achieved through an approach that is open, based on a principle of seeking equality, and one that is fully prepared to follow a path different from the one that may have originally been envisaged. This adaptive approach embraces the concept of co-learning, and was one of the objectives of the social learning processes embarked on in this project. This handbook emerged over the course of four years, during which time facilitators associated with a vulnerability and adaptation research programme set out to support social learning processes in two communities simultaneously. Facilitators did not ‘get it right’ every time, in fact they often got it wrong. However, in a reflexive process such as this, these experiences were used to improve interactions with community members. Here, we try to present not only a process that might assist others who seek to understand local vulnerability and build adaptive capacity in communities, but also some of the key co-learning ‘moments’ experienced along the way in which either the facilitators or the community participants changed their thinking about what they were doing (co-learning in action). It is important to remember as you read this handbook that the process was developed as part of a broader scientific research project on vulnerability and adaptation to climate change and other stressors, with a focus on knowledge building. It was led through Rhodes University, not through a development agency, and therefore the focus may be quite different from one arising in a more development-based context. Nevertheless, many aspects of the handbook should resonate within different contexts. We believe the handbook will be useful for NGO practitioners who work with communities and seek to build critical capacities, researchers who are interested in processes of action research, social change and co-learning, and government employees who are mandated to support communities in their efforts to collectively overcome hardships.
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Deagraianisation is a worldwide phenomenon with widespread social, ecological and economic effects yet with little consensus on the local or higher level causes. There have been contested views on the causes and consequences of deagrarianisation on South Africa's Wild Coast, which is an international biodiversity hotspot. Using GIS, household interviews and ecological sampling, we compared the perspectives of current and former cultivators as to why some have abandoned farming, whilst also tracking the uses and woody plant cover and composition of fields abandoned at different periods. The GIS analysis showed that field abandonment had been ongoing over several decades, with a decline from 12.5 % field cover in 1961 to 2.7 % in 2009. The area of forests and woodlands almost doubled in the corresponding period. There was a distinct peak in field abandonment during the time of political transition at the national level in the early 1990s. This political change led to a decrease in government support for livestock farming, which in turn resulted in reduced animal draught power at the household and community level, and hence reduced cropping. The study showed it is largely the wealthier households that have remained in arable agriculture and that the poorer households have abandoned farming. The abandoned fields show a distinct trend of increasing woody biomass and species richness with length of time since abandonment, with approximately three woody plant species added per decade. Most local respondents dislike the increases in forest and woodland extent and density because of anxiety about wild animals causing harm to crops and even humans, and the loss of an agricultural identity to livelihoods and the landscape.
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Colonial dichotomies continue to operate quite freely in the present … Of these dichotomies, that between “modernity” and “tradition” has proved to be the most enduring. The first axis – modernity – is associated with progress, development, “the West”, science and technology, high standards of living, rationality and order; the other axis – tradition – is associated with stasis or even stagnation, underdevelopment, conventional tools and technologies, poverty, superstition and disorder. (Gupta. 1998:48)Knowledge is like light. Weightless and intangible, it can easily travel the world, enlightening the lives of people everywhere. Yet billions of people still live in the darkness of poverty – unnecessarily. (World Bank, 1999:1)
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In the limited literature on gender and climate change, two themes predominate – women as vulnerable or virtuous in relation to the environment. Two viewpoints become obvious: women in the South will be affected more by climate change than men in those countries and that men in the North pollute more than women. The debates are structured in specific ways in the North and the South and the discussion in the article focuses largely on examples from Sweden and India. The article traces the lineage of the arguments to the women, environment and development discussions, examining how they recur in new forms in climate debates. Questioning assumptions about women's vulnerability and virtuousness, it highlights how a focus on women's vulnerability or virtuousness can deflect attention from inequalities in decision-making. By reiterating statements about poor women in the South and the pro-environmental women of the North, these assumptions reinforce North–South biases. Generalizations about women's vulnerability and virtuousness can lead to an increase in women's responsibility without corresponding rewards. There is need to contextualise debates on climate change to enable action and to respond effectively to its adverse effects in particular places.
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Over 40% of the earth’s land surface are drylands that are home to approximately 2.5 billion people. Livelihood sustainability in drylands is threatened by a complex and interrelated range of social, economic, political, and environmental changes that present significant challenges to researchers, policy makers, and, above all, rural land users. Dynamic ecological and environmental change models suggest that climate change induced drought events may push dryland systems to cross biophysical thresholds, causing a long-term drop in agricultural productivity. Therefore, research is needed to explore how development strategies and other socioeconomic changes help livelihoods become more resilient and robust at a time of growing climatic risk and uncertainty. As a result, the overarching goal of this special feature is to conduct a structured comparison of how livelihood systems in different dryland regions are affected by drought, thereby making methodological, empirical, and theoretical contributions to our understanding of how these types of social-ecological systems may be vulnerable to climate change. In introducing these issues, the purpose of this editorial is to provide an overview of the two main intellectual challenges of this work, namely: (1) how to conceptualize vulnerability to climate change in coupled social-ecological systems; and (2) the methodological challenges of anticipating trends in vulnerability in dynamic environments.
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This paper describes an initiative to develop a model for understanding the multi-faceted nature and effects of vulnerability. The model is designed to enable analysis and assessment of interventions that address vulnerability, a concept that is widely used across disciplines and in development planning in Africa, particularly in southern Africa. The model is being developed to accommodate analyses of ‘multiple stressors’ and to identify the intersection and interaction of stressors in different contexts. Using three case studies related to vulnerability reduction and HIV/AIDS, we show how multiple processes interact and can influence the outcomes of vulnerability interventions in ways that may not be readily apparent when focusing on one stressor alone.
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Though still limited in scale, work with men to achieve gender equality is occurring on every continent and in many countries. A rapidly expanding evidence base demonstrates that rigorously implemented initiatives targeting men can change social practices that affect the health of both sexes, particularly in the context of HIV and AIDS. Too often however, messages only address the harm that regressive masculinity norms cause women, while neglecting the damage done to men by these norms. This article calls for a more inclusive approach which recognizes that men, far from being a monolithic group, have unequal access to health and rights depending on other intersecting forms of discrimination based on race, class, sexuality, disability, nationality, and the like. Messages that target men only as holders of privilege miss men who are disempowered or who themselves challenge rigid gender roles. The article makes recommendations which move beyond treating men simply as "the problem", and instead lays a foundation for engaging men both as agents of change and holders of rights to the ultimate benefit of women and men. Human rights and other policy interventions must avoid regressive stereotyping, and successful local initiatives should be taken to scale nationally and internationally.
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One-third of the world's population burn organic material such as wood, dung or charcoal (biomass fuel) for cooking, heating and lighting. This form of energy usage is associated with high levels of indoor air pollution and an increase in the incidence of respiratory infections, including pneumonia, tuberculosis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, low birthweight, cataracts, cardiovascular events and all-cause mortality both in adults and children. The mechanisms behind these associations are not fully understood. This review summarises the available information on biomass fuel use and health, highlighting the current gaps in knowledge.
Technical Report
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This paper provides a non-technical, snapshot-like profile of poverty in South Africa based on two surveys recently conducted by Statistics South Africa: the Income and expenditure survey of households 2005/06 (IES2005) and the General household survey 2006 (GHS2006). It uses various “poverty markers” (including geographical location, population group, gender, household structure, the age of the head of the household, and employment status) to identify key characteristics of poverty groups, and also highlights other important dimensions of poverty (deficient access to infrastructure services, high transport cost burdens, limited education attainments, and exposure to hunger). The paper further emphasises that the expansion of social grants since 1999 has significantly reduced extreme poverty.
Book
In some parts of South Africa, more than one in three people are HIV positive. Love in the Time of AIDS explores transformations in notions of gender and intimacy to try to understand the roots of this virulent epidemic. By living in an informal settlement and collecting love letters, cell phone text messages, oral histories, and archival materials, Mark Hunter details the everyday social inequalities that have resulted in untimely deaths. Hunter shows how first apartheid and then chronic unemployment have become entangled with ideas about femininity, masculinity, love, and sex and have created an economy of exchange that perpetuates the transmission of HIV/AIDS. This sobering ethnography challenges conventional understandings of HIV/AIDS in South Africa.
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In the colonial vision of Southern Africa, rural people were seen as both underemployed and self-sustaining even while processes of commodification dependent on the exploitation of their labour were producing spatially and racially marked inequalities of wealth and consumption and related patterns of health and affliction. Affliction sometimes reflected denial of access to formal health provisioning, but it was also produced by the conditions of labour, including capital's largely successful struggle to externalize responsibility for the reproduction of its workers. This paper discusses various moments in the making of affliction in the region: the development of endemic tuberculosis, the resurgence of malaria, famine-related paralysis and HIV/AIDS. These cases illustrate how affliction has been shaped by the weight of long-term structural relations of class in the organization of labour and by the contingent outcomes of immediate political struggles. They suggest that efforts to improve health in Southern Africa today must address persistent structural patterns that underlie the causes of the incidence of disease; these are also relevant to questions of land reform.
Article
People in southern Africa are facing escalating levels of risk, uncertainty and consequently vulnerability as a result of multiple interacting stressors, including HIV/AIDS, poverty, food insecurity, weak governance, climate change and land degradation, to name but a few. Vulnerability or livelihood insecurity emerges when poor people as individuals or social units have to face harmful threats or shocks with inadequate capacity to respond effectively. In such situations, people often have no choice but to turn to their immediate environment for support. Evidence suggests that rising levels of human vulnerability are driving increased dependency on biodiversity and ecosystem services, which in turn, and along with other threats, is rendering ecosystems more vulnerable. This paper explores the dynamic and complex linkages and feedbacks between human vulnerability and ecosystem vulnerability, drawing on data from the southern African region. Human vulnerability is conceptualized as a threat to ecosystem health, as driven by the interplay between a number of current and emerging factors. We focus on poverty, HIV/AIDS and more intense climate extremes as examples of stressors on livelihoods and direct and indirect drivers of ecosystem change. We discuss how some of the responses to increased vulnerability may pose threats to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem management and sustainable development, whilst considering potential solutions that rely on a thorough understanding of coupled socialecological systems and the interplay between multiple stressors and responses at different scales.
Article
Smallholder farmers continuously confront multiple social and environmental stressors that necessitate changes in livelihood strategies to prevent damages and take advantage of new opportunities, or adaptation. Vulnerability, meaning susceptibility to harm, is attributable to social determinants that limit access to assets, leading to greater exposure and sensitivity to stressors and a limited capacity to adapt. Stressors and adaptation are intertwined because stressors deplete resources available for adaptation, while adaptation may erode resources available to respond to future stressors. We present empirical evidence demonstrating the interactions of multiple stressors and adaptations over time through a case study of indigenous farmers in highland Bolivia. We examine how farmers perceive the stress on their livelihoods, their strategies for adapting to these threats, and the influence of past adaptation and exposure on vulnerability under increasing climatic change. We find that vulnerability changes over time as multiple stressors, such as land scarcity and delayed seasonal rainfall, compound, simultaneously reducing access and demanding the expenditure of household assets for adaptation, including natural capital (water and land), human capital (including labor), and financial, physical, and social capital. To reduce vulnerability over time, constraints on access to key resources must be addressed, allowing households the flexibility to reduce their exposure and improve their adaptive capacity to the multiple stressors they confront.
Article
This article maps food insecurity in South Africa and plumbs the data to women-headed households at the municipal level. Local contexts provide a better understanding of people's experiences by studying the impact their geographical location has on their economic status, and the impact their raced and gendered identities have on that experience. Localised information could also ensure that more nuanced policies are developed to address inequalities. Food insecurity is a marker of exclusion and poverty in urban and rural areas across South Africa, but women are more likely than men to be food insecure, especially in the rural areas. Data are combined from Statistics South Africa's Income and Expenditure Survey and Community Survey (both 2008) to arrive at a more accurate assessment of food insecurity at municipal level in South Africa.The National Department of Agriculture places food insecurity at 50%, while this study argues that approximately 64% of households in South Africa are food insecure, a result which has policy implications. Our study also uses data that provide a more nuanced approach that shows provincial and municipal variations that are much higher than the national average, which should support provincial and local government policies that address food insecurity more effectively. The article also argues that due to male-biased economic, cultural and community practices, women-headed households are most food insecure.In light of this information, the article provides a nuanced understanding of women's food insecurity in the country. We offer policy recommendations on how women's food insecurity could be reduced in the areas where it is most prevalent. The importance of gender-sensitive development policies, localised contextual knowledge, and innovative strategies that would assist women in their efforts to become food secure, particularly in rural areas across South Africa, are highlighted.
Article
There is increasing evidence that climate change will be one of the primary challenges facing future development and agriculture. Farmers, whether crop or livestock farmers, will be faced with tradeoffs and constraints as climate change exposes them to greater risk and renders some of their current practices unworkable. This study assessed commercial livestock and game farmers’ knowledge and perceptions of climate variability and change in the semiarid Great Fish River Valley, South Africa, and their coping responses to a severe regional drought in 2009/2010. Detailed questionnaires revealed that farmers’ knowledge of global climate change was incomplete, suggesting that measures are needed to increase their understanding and awareness of likely impacts. Farmers were able to articulate a consistent story regarding how they believed local climate to have changed and most had implemented a variety of coping strategies in order to endure the drought. Some of these strategies were seen to have the potential to become longer-term adaptive practices. Farmers were, on the whole, open to considering new approaches and land uses such as carbon farming with Portulacaria afra (spekboom) to help them adapt to a more uncertain future.
Article
This paper addresses the interactions between the AIDS epidemic and climate change in southern Africa, particularly as they impact on food security. An assessment was undertaken through a comprehensive literature review. Understanding the underlying causes of regional food insecurity inevitably means understanding the role of the AIDS epidemic and increasingly climate change amongst other stressors. AIDS cuts through household and community level capacity, as well as the capacity of key facilitators of the adaptation process including state extension services and civil society organisations. The main argument of the paper is that adaptation to climate change must explicitly factor in the existing and long-term effects of the epidemic. While calls for embracing adaptation abound, little is being done to assess and strengthen the organisational capacity of institutions, which should play leading roles in any attempt to help prepare for a changing climate. In particular the capacity of key agencies has been undermined by the AIDS epidemic. This reiterates the need for a multisectoral approach and building bridges between agriculture and health sectors to ensure longer term support to livelihoods where HIV and hunger coexist, often overlaid by climate change.
Article
One of the paradoxes of the democratic project in South Africa is that the combination of political empowerment, organised constituencies of poor people and increasing social sector spending has made minimal impact on increasing equality. Despite an overall macroeconomic framework that emphasises fiscal restraint, social welfare spending has increased in the past 14 years, and dramatically so since 2003. Almost one in four South Africans receives some or other form of grant, and the majority of recipients are women. Indeed, South Africa is regularly described as the developing world’s largest and most generous welfare state. I address the extent to which gender inequalities are reduced through public sector spending, asking the question: what is the optimal relationship between social policy and the intrinsic democratic goals of equality, social justice and citizenship? Drawing on Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach, the article argues that a focus on social sector spending alone is inadequate to address questions of social justice. Instead, I draw attention to the normative assumptions, discursive environment and institutional context in which social policy is elaborated and implemented. I argue that, in a context in which there is relatively poor infrastructural capacity in the state to ensure that service delivery takes place in fair, consistent and egalitarian ways, households and communities act as shock absorbers of state failures and women’s gendered burdens increase, despite formal commitments to gender equality. While women appear to have gained from political empowerment, women politicians did not effectively leverage their position in the state to promote pro‐poor policies or to build coalitions to challenge the watering down of early commitments to reducing gender inequalities.
Article
This article outlines current perspectives on adaptation and discusses what a pro-poor view of adaptation might look like. It argues that an explicit focus on assets, or the resources which people have available to them, adds a valuable perspective to adaptation debates. It discusses three bodies of literature: on climate risk reduction; on household vulnerability; and finally on asset approaches to poverty reduction. In particular, focusing on assets highlights the agency of poor people in the face of risks, and draws attention to how risk can be an opportunity as well as a threat.
Article
Studies of multiple stressors in Africa often focus on vulnerable inland communities. Rising concentrations of the world’s poor live in coastal rural–urban areas with direct dependencies on marine as well as terrestrial ecosystem goods and services. Using participatory methods we elicited perceptions of stressors and their sources, impacts and consequences held by coastal communities in eastern Africa (Mtwara in Tanzania and Maputo in Mozambique). Respondent-informed timelines suggest wars, economic policies and natural increase have led to natural resource-dependent populations in marginal, previously little-inhabited lowland coastal areas. Respondents (n=91) in interviews and focus groups rank climate stressors (temperature rise/erratic rain) highest amongst human/natural stressors having negative impacts on livelihoods and wellbeing (e.g., cross-scale cost of living increases including food and fuel prices). Sources of stress and impacts were mixed in time and space, complicating objective identification of causal chains. Some appeared to be specific to coastal areas. Respondents reported farms failing and rising dependence on stressed marine resources, food and fuel prices and related dependence on traders and credit shrunk by negative global market trends. Development in the guise of tourism and conservation projects limited access to land–sea livelihoods and resources in rural–urban areas (coastal squeeze). Mental modelling clarified resource user perceptions of complex linkages from local to international levels. We underline risks of the poor in marginal coastal areas facing double or multiple exposures to multiple stressors, with climate variability suggesting the risks of climate change. KeywordsAfrica-Vulnerability-Multiple stressors, climate change-Livelihood-Adaptation
Article
The burgeoning interest in social capital within the climate change community represents a welcome move towards a concern for the behavioural elements of adaptive action and capacity. In this paper the case is put forward for a critical engagement with social capital. There is need for an open debate on the conceptual and analytical traps and opportunities that social capital presents. The paper contrasts three schools of thought on social capital and uses a social capital lens to map out current and future areas for research on adaptation to climate change. It identifies opportunities for using social capital to research adaptive capacity and action within communities of place and communities of practice.
Article
Investigating whether female-headed households (FHHs) are particularly disadvantaged requires more systematic means of comparing poverty than are typically found in past studies. In Panama, while FHHs as a whole appear to be better-off on average, such results are somewhat sensitive to assumptions about economies of scale in household consumption. More disaggregated analysis reveals that particular segments of FHHs, particularly self-reported FHHs with common-law partners living in urban areas, are disadvantaged in both consumption and some nonconsumption dimensions. Thus less systematic analysis could fail to identify such “pockets of poverty” that might deserve special policy attention.
Article
Using household data from Northern Zambia, this article looks at HIV/AIDS impacts on different aspects of people's access to food. The findings draw particular attention to the variances in vulnerability among households burdened by illness and orphans that are headed by men, women and the elderly. It is argued that vulnerability levels to HIV/AIDS impact differ substantially among households and implicitly expose the underlying causal conditions that enable or disable people in their responsiveness. Households affected by HIV/AIDS cannot be treated as a homogeneous group and understanding the differences in vulnerability can play an important policy role in designing targeted support.
Article
This paper addresses the near global attribution of stigma and deviance to female sex workers, and the salience of this attribution for health interventions in HIV/AIDS. A conceptual frame is developed as a guide to comparative sociological study in this area, and the importance of explanation at the level of social structure emphasized. After a general review of the empirical literature, more sustained attention is paid to specific aspects of female sex work in three contexts or figurations, the cities of London, Bangkok and Kolkarta. It is argued that norms of shame and blame and the labelling process with which they are bound up always arise within a structure nexus. We emphasis, in particular, the figuration-specific tensions between the global and the local, system and lifeworld and, the relationship between structure, agency and culture. The article concludes with a discussion of attempts to empower female sex workers and with a series of five orienting themes comprising a research programme for the future.
Article
Abstract: This is an overview of poverty and well-being in the first decade of post-apartheid South Africa. It is an introduction to a volume that brings together some of the most prominent academic research done on this topic for the 10-year review process in South Africa. This overview highlights three key aspects of the picture that the detailed research paints. First, data quality and comparability has been a constant issue in arriving at a consensus among analysts on the outcomes for households and individuals in post-apartheid South Africa. Second, while the outcomes on unemployment, poverty and inequality are indeed bad, the outcomes on social indicators and access to public services are much more encouraging. Third, the prospects for rapid and sustained economic growth, without which poverty and well-being cannot be addressed in the long run, are themselves negatively affected by increasing inequality, poverty and unemployment.
South Africa HIV/AIDS Statistics
AVERT (2011) 'South Africa HIV/AIDS Statistics', available at: http://www.avert.org/safricastats.htm, site accessed 19 Jan 2014.
Responses to the linked stressors of climate change and HIV/AIDS amongst vulnerable rural households in the Eastern Cape, South Africa
  • C Clarke
Clarke C (2012) 'Responses to the linked stressors of climate change and HIV/AIDS amongst vulnerable rural households in the Eastern Cape, South Africa', unpublished Masters thesis, Rhodes University.
The politics of communal tenure reform: a South African case study
  • B Cousins
Cousins B (2010) 'The politics of communal tenure reform: a South African case study' in W Anseeuw & C Alden (eds) The Struggle over Land in Africa: Conflicts, Politics and Change, Cape Town: HSRC Press.
A literature review of gender-differentiated impacts of climate change on women and men's assets and well-being in developing countries', CAPRI Working Paper No. 106, IFPRI, Washington DC
  • Ahx Goh
Goh AHX (2012) 'A literature review of gender-differentiated impacts of climate change on women and men's assets and well-being in developing countries', CAPRI Working Paper No. 106, IFPRI, Washington DC. Government of South Africa (2011) National Climate Change White Paper, Department of Environmental Affairs, South Africa.
Drowning Voices: The Climate Change Discourse in South Africa, Cape Town: Heinrich Boell Stiftung
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Madzwamuse M (2010) Drowning Voices: The Climate Change Discourse in South Africa, Cape Town: Heinrich Boell Stiftung.
Assessing household assets to understand vulnerability to HIV/Aids and climate change in the Eastern Cape, South Africa
  • L T Stadler
Stadler LT (2012) 'Assessing household assets to understand vulnerability to HIV/Aids and climate change in the Eastern Cape, South Africa', unpublished Masters thesis, Rhodes University.
Local institutional structures and food security in South Africa
  • A Trefry
Trefry A (2013) 'Local institutional structures and food security in South Africa', unpublished Masters thesis, University of Alberta.
Caregiving in the Context of HIV/ AIDS
UNAIDS (2008) Caregiving in the Context of HIV/ AIDS, Geneva: United Nations.
Climate change, food security and small-scale producers
  • S J Vermeulen
Vermeulen SJ (2014) 'Climate change, food security and small-scale producers', CCAFS Info Brief, CGAIR Research Programme on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), Copenhagen.
Gendered vulnerability to climate change in Limpopo Province, South Africa’ in I Dankelman (ed) Gender and Climate Change: An introduction
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Vincent K, Cull T & Archer E (2010) 'Gendered vulnerability to climate change in Limpopo Province, South Africa' in I Dankelman (ed) Gender and Climate Change: An introduction, London: Earthscan.
The people matter: The state of the population in the Eastern Cape
  • M B Makiwane
  • Dod Chimere-Dan
Makiwane MB & Chimere-Dan DOD (2010) 'The people matter: The state of the population in the Eastern Cape', Eastern Cape Department of Social Development, East London.
A literature review of gender-differentiated impacts of climate change on women and men's assets and well-being in developing countries
  • Ahx Goh
  • Ifpri
  • D C Washington