C O N C E P T U A L I Z I N G C L I M A T E V U L N E R A B I L I T Y T H R O U G H A G E N D E R E D

L E N S

Improving Livestock Holder Food Security

S a r a h M c K u n e , M P H , P h D

U n i v e r s i t y o f F l o r i d a

B a s e d o n a m a n u s c r i p t a n d c o n c e p t u a l f r a m e w o r k d e v e l o p e d b y S a r a h M c K u n e , E r i c a B o r r e n s e n , A l y s o n

Y o u n g , T h e r e s e d ’ A u r i a R y l e y , S a n d r a R u s s o , A s t o u D i a o C a m a r a , M e g h a n C o l e m a n , E l i z a b e t h R y a n

Introductions

Dr. Sarah McKune

Objectives Initiate a dialogue about the role gender plays in effective response to

improve or understand the vulnerability of food security among livestock holders

Introduce a conceptual framework used to improve understanding of appropriate gendered response (e.g. research, programming, etc.)

Facilitate application of the framework to various setting, programs, etc. of the group to identify improved gendered response

Contact information: smckune@ufl.edu

GENDER and SEX

Gender Sex

Societal roles of each sex

Biological

Culturally determined

Universal

Varies from society to society, generation to generation

Not changed over time

Changeable Unchangeable

Implications of Sex/Gender Distinction

Gender differences and the categories that

they correspond to should not be assumed

but investigated, as they will vary both from

one context to another, as well as one time

period to another.

Gender and Agricultural Development: Why it matters

Women make significant contributions to agricultural production and to rural households, but have less access to land, livestock, capital, credit, technology, and training than men.

Gender based constraints to accessing these resources significantly reduce the productivity of both the rural sector and the entire national economy. They can be formal laws, attitudes, perceptions, values, or practices (cultural, institutional, political, or economic).

Gender Analysis

Gender Analysis refers to a systematic way of examining the different

impacts of interventions on women and men.

Gender analysis explores and highlights the relationships of men and

women in society, and the inequalities in those relationships.

Gender analysis looks at how power relations within the household

interrelate with those at the international, state, market, and

community level.

Note of Caution

Integrating GENDER into programs – research, development, etc. – is NOT the same as focusing on women.

Rather, it is about roles of women and men. Effectively assessing gender may lead to a focus on livelihood activites, on physical space, or on another cross cutting issue.

Application of Gender

Livestock holder food security in the context of climate change

How does an appropriate consideration of gender change how we understand, research and address

food security?

Key concepts

Food security: A state in which all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and health life.

Livestock Holder: Any member of a community that incorporates some form of livestock rearing as a necessary component to their livelihood.

Gender: Socially constructed norms, roles, behaviors and activities that are considered appropriate for men and women by a given society. Gender determines what is expected, permitted and valued in a woman or a man within a given context.

Vulnerability: the degree to which systems (e.g. households, communities, and organizations) are susceptible to loss, damage, suffering and death in the event of hazard or disaster.

Livestock Holder Vulnerability

Food security, globally and locally, is threatened by climate change

Changing rainfall patterns (quantity, timing, periodicity)

Heat

Livelihood adaptions

Livestock Holder Vulnerability

Food security of livestock holders is threatened by climate change in various ways, depending upon livelihood activities and the local context, and livestock holders must adapt.

New herding strategies, sedentarization, adoption of new species, diversification, etc.

Market exchange and threat to livestock holders during times of food insecurity.

What role does Gender play?

We must begin/continue thinking about how gender affects the impact of climate change.

Climate Change has gendered impact

CC is a driver of changing gender roles and gendered work load

CC drives changes in HH decision making, e.g. migration

Links between female decision making and nutritional/food security outcomes

Gendered manifestations of three dimensions of food security affected by climate change among pastoralists

Economic Health Nutrition

Pastoralists

↑ time demand on

women for collection of

water and fuel

↑ time demand on men

to seek out water

sources with herd

↑ productive and

reproductive demands

on women due to new

coping mechanisms and

livelihood

modifications

↓ financial autonomy of

women due to probable

liquidation of small

animal assets

↑ risk of disease due to

proximity of women’s

work to reservoirs of

disease agents and

biologic risk

↑ vulnerability to

maternal mortality due

to ↑ fertility associated

with sedentarization

↓ mental and emotional

health due to increased

burden and loss of

social support

↑ undernutrition due to

↓ availability of certain

plant and animal

species

↑ undernutrition due to

separation of family

members from milk

producing animals

↑ undernutrition due to

unfavorable terms of

trade between animal

products and grains

Activity 1: Gendered dimensions of food security among Nepalese agropastoralists and urban livestock holders

With others at your table, please populate the following chart for either agropastoralists or urban livestock holders:

What are some of the gendered impacts of climate change on food security under each dimension?

Economic Health Nutrition

Agro-

pastoralists

OR

Urban Livestock

Holders

Conceptualizing Vulnerability

Füssel (Füssel, 2007) proposes a generic conceptual framework of vulnerability.

Various conceptualizations of vulnerability are categorized into four groups, none of which sufficiently captures the range of vulnerability concepts that need be addressed in the context of climate change.

He proposes a conceptual framework that includes:

nomenclature for describing any vulnerable situation in terms of the system, the hazard, the attribute of concern, and a temporal reference; &

a classification of vulnerability factors, which includes internal socioeconomic, internal biophysical, external socioeconomic, and external biophysical factors.

Conceptualizing Vulnerability

We apply and expand Füssel’s proposed conceptual framework and nomenclature to develop a fully qualified characterization of the vulnerability of food security (our attribute of concern) among livestock holders (system) to climate change (hazard).

Following Füssel’s classification system, the components of the framework (vulnerability factors) are used deliberately to characterize the situation to a broad audience of global health professionals.

Food security vulnerability among livestock holders facing climate change

Influence of gender on the vulnerability to food insecurity among livestock holders facing climate change

Activity 2: Application of the conceptual framework

With others at your table, identify a project (research or development) which aims to improve food security of livestock holders and with which one or more of you are familiar.

As a group, apply the framework, by populating some/all of the components within the framework with information for your project.

How does consideration of gender affect you thinking?

Are new pathways of vulnerability revealed?

Are new points of intervention/research needs identified?

Feedback on the Framework

How useful is the framework?

At what scale do you see the framework providing meaningful insights?

What changes or amendments need to be considered?

Other comments or questions about the framework? Feel free to contact me at smckune@ufl.edu with additional

questions or comments.

• Use gender analytical tools to assess climate impacts

• Include urban and peri-urban livestock holders in discussions of climate change impacts

• Make explicit the links between livestock production, gender, climate change, and food security

• Engage women in livestock-focused agricultural extension activities

• Identify approaches that would increase legal ownership and assets of livestock for women

• Develop protocols for climate researchers to help them understand and engage with gender issues in the work they do.

Recommendations derived from application of the conceptual

framework

Thank you for participating!