Increased understanding of global warming and documentation of its observable impacts have led to the development of adaptation responses to climate change around the world. A necessary, but often missing, component of adaptation involves the assessment of outcomes and impact. Through a systematic review of research literature, I categorize 110 adaptation initiatives that have been implemented and shown some degree of effectiveness. I analyze the ways in which these activities have been documented as effective using five indicators: reducing risk and vulnerability, developing resilient social systems, improving the environment, increasing economic resources, and enhancing governance and institutions. The act of cataloging adaptation activities produces insights for current and future climate action in two main areas: understanding common attributes of adaptation initiatives reported to be effective in current literature; and identifying gaps in adaptation research and practice that address equality, justice, and power dynamics.

What makes climate change adaptation effective? A systematic review of the literature

Agricultural development efforts that do not address persistent gender gaps miss opportunities for greater impact. This synthesis reflects on key findings from integrated quantitative and qualitati...

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/14735903.2017.1336411

Addressing gender in agricultural research for development in the face of a changing climate: where are we and where should we be going?

Predicting climate change mitigation and adaptation behaviors in agricultural production: A comparison of the theory of planned behavior and the Value-Belief-Norm Theory

Climate change and variability present a major challenge to agricultural production and rural livelihoods, including livelihoods of women smallholder farmers. There are significant efforts underway...

/pdf/smallholder-farmers-and-climate-smart-agriculture-technology-1e33i3pq19.pdf

Smallholder Farmers and Climate Smart Agriculture: Technology and Labor-productivity Constraints amongst Women Smallholders in Malawi

Agriculture is the largest employment sector for 60% of women in Oceania, Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa and women make up 2/3 of the world’s 600 million small livestock managers. Despite thi...

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0971852416643872

Closing the Gender Gap in Agriculture

In Uganda, Ghana and Bangladesh, participatory tools were used for a socio-economic and gender analysis of three topics: climate-smart agriculture (CSA), climate analogue approaches, and climate and weather forecasting. Policy and programme-relevant results were obtained. Smallholders are changing agricultural practices due to observations of climatic and environmental change. Women appear to be less adaptive because of financial or resource constraints, because of male domination in receiving information and extension services and because available adaptation strategies tend to create higher labour loads for women. The climate analogue approach (identifying places resembling your future climate so as to identify potential adaptations) is a promising tool for increasing farmer-to-farmer learning, where a high degree of climatic variability means that analogue villages that have successfully adopted new CSA practices exist nearby. Institutional issues related to forecast production limit their credibility ...

/pdf/understanding-gender-dimensions-of-agriculture-and-climate-15fwof401s.pdf

Marja-Liisa Tapio-Bistrom

Papers

Understanding gender dimensions of agriculture and climate change in smallholder farming communities