Adaptation, gender and women’s empowerment

This brief on adaptation, gender and women’s empowerment is part of a series on CARE’s climate change activities. Recognising that many women lack adequate rights, resources and power for responding to climate change, CARE views gender dimensions as critical for understanding vulnerability. Firstly, CARE assesses the differential vulnerabilities to climate change that result from social, political and economic inequalities. For example, as men are generally responsible for producing market-oriented crops, they often claim more fertile land. This leaves women to produce subsistence crops on less productive land. In response, CARE has designed adaptation strategies that empower the most vulnerable women and men, partnering with local organisations to develop their capacity for supporting climate-resilient livelihoods, reducing disaster risks and addressing the underlying causes of vulnerability, such as gender inequality.The document outlines the ways in which CARE incorporates gender-transformative activities (changing rigid gender norms and power imbalances) in its adaptation strategies, and describes CARE’s incorporation of a women’s empowerment framework into gender-transformative adaptation policies and programmes. CARE’s transformative approach is exemplified in case studies from Tajikistan, Bangladesh and Ghana.