Women and Climate Adaptation in Rural Sub-Saharan Africa: Constraints and Research Priorities

Clara Delavallade, Melanie Colette Jacqueline Gittard and Julia Vaillant

No 11095, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: Sub-Saharan Africa is highly vulnerable to climate change, with rural women disproportionately affected due to pre-existing gender inequalities that both increase adaptation needs and constrain response capacities. This paper reviews empirical evidence on constraints to women’s climate adaptation in Sub-Saharan Africa, identifies key knowledge gaps, and outlines a gender-informed research and policy agenda. Focusing on four adaptation strategies—climate-smart agriculture, weather insurance, income diversification, and migration—alongside adaptive social protection programs, the review synthesizes experimental, quasi-experimental, and descriptive studies to distinguish correlational patterns from causal evidence and classify interventions by the strength of empirical support. Across strategies, women face greater adaptation barriers than men, driven by limited access to finance and assets, insecure land tenure, restrictive gender norms, lower human and social capital, and constrained access to climate information. The paper identifies only two intervention types with credible causal evidence: targeted delivery of climate-smart agricultural information—particularly through female extension agents or joint spousal targeting—and multi-faceted adaptive social protection programs that address multiple constraints simultaneously. Emerging interventions, such as socio-emotional skills training, childcare provision, and land titling, show promise but remain supported by limited causal evidence, while frontier interventions—including digital climate services, gender-responsive insurance, and norm-changing approaches—remain empirically underexplored. Important gaps persist regarding women’s migration as a climate adaptation strategy, particularly in distinguishing long-term adaptation from short-term coping. By assessing the strength of evidence across interventions, this review clarifies which gender-sensitive adaptation policies are supported by causal evidence and where important gaps remain.

Date: 2025-04-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env and nep-fle
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/0998525 ... cf2-d7254cab0132.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (https://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099852504012532492/pdf/IDU-12cbe268-1ee9-4688-acf2-d7254cab0132.pdf [302 Found]--> http://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/099852504012532492/pdf/IDU-12cbe268-1ee9-4688-acf2-d7254cab0132.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/099852504012532492/pdf/IDU-12cbe268-1ee9-4688-acf2-d7254cab0132.pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11095

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank 1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20433. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Roula I. Yazigi ().