Women’s Vulnerability and Adaptive Capacity to Climate Change in Agrarian Settings of Zimbabwe

Economic development is impacted by changes in the global environment and how frequently and how intensely climate-related calamities like floods and droughts occur. Even though everyone is impacted by climate change, anecdotal evidence indicates that different social groupings, even within the same polities, have significantly different capacities to adjust to the changing environment. This study examines the factors that make women more vulnerable to the effects of climate change, adaptation tactics, and relative degrees of adaptive capacity in a few Zimbabwean agrarian settings in Matabeleland. The framework for adapting to climate change and the gender and power theory serve as the foundation for this qualitative investigation. The study is based on the knowledge that women face disproportionate workloads, little decision-making authority, and restricted access to and control over productive resources, services, and employment prospects. The ability to control and obtain resources, to use and access information services, and to innovate in response to changing opportunities and challenges are the factors that mediate the capacity to adapt to climate change. The government should support gender-responsive land and climate change policy, the study suggests. A concerted effort is required to enhance the ownership and control of productive resources, particularly land and forest products, by women. In the battle against climate change, it is critical to raise women’s consciousness and provide them with more knowledge about adaptation and climate change. The empowerment strategy has the potential to greatly increase household resilience to the effects of climate change.