Women’s Response Methods to the Consequences of Climate Change

Abstract

The majority Ethiopian women are largely engaged in the agricultural sector, which is highly vulnerable to climate changes. This study, aims at analyzing the determinants of women’s response measures of climate change in the Dubti Woreda. This article designed as a cross-sectional research design and employed qualitative and quantitative research approaches. Data was obtained from primary and secondary sources. Moreover, both the probability and non probability sampling techniques were employed. Accordingly, this article found that five major response mechanism to the consequence of climate change. The result from the binary logistic model reveals that age, access to training, farming experience, access to credit service, radio and mobile services determines women’s response methods to the consequence of climate changes. Finally, the article recommends for greater investment in women education and training to address the above mentioned challenges.

Keywords: Climate change, Response Strategy, Binary Logistic Regression Model.

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

The impact of climate change is increasing from time to time. Climate change causes for floods, droughts, cyclones and desertification processes and this put the population of the world, especially developing countries at high risk and can undermine the development efforts to reduce poverty (Anne, 2009).

The poor are the most vulnerable to climate change and women are among the greatest number share of the poor, because women constitute more than 70% of the overall worldwide population living below the poverty line, and this implies how many women are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change compared to other groups (Ulrike, 2006).

Societies have a long evidence of adapting to the consequence of climate change through different sorts of practice, such as crop diversification, irrigation, water management, disaster risk management, and insurance, but climate change adversely attacks these coping mechanisms due to drought, heat waves and hurricane intensity (Adger, et al., 2007).

Nhemachena and Hassan (2007) identified the important determinants of response to climate change in South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe to be access to credit and extension, and also women’s consciousness about climate change, as such, that the study suggested enhancing access to credit and information about climate and agronomy so as to boost women’s response to the consequence of climate change.

Ethiopia’s overall vulnerability to climate change was ranked 10th of 233 countries (Center for Global Development (CGD), 2012) and climate change are considered a significant threat to the development of the country (ACCRA, 2011). As a result, Ethiopia’s development and growth potential have been held back by climate variability, uncertainty and change (Dinku et al., 2011).

To this end, the article deems that, the present Ethiopian government has been drafting policies and strategies and applying a lot of response mechanisms to tackle the impact of climate change. However, the policies and strategies and these response mechanisms are not gender sensitive which means does not recognize the role of women in the environmental protection process.

Statement of the Problem

Climate change has gender-specific implications in terms of response and there are structural differences between men and women through, for example, gender-specific roles in society, work and domestic life (Cutter, 1995; Denton, 2002; Enarson, 2002). These differences affect the decision of women to give response to the consequence of climate change (Dankelman, 2002).

Response strategies are uneven across and within societies. In relation to this, there are individuals and groups within all societies that have an insufficient decision to response of climate change, for example, in most African countries women in subsistence farming communities are disproportionately burdened with the costs of recovery and coping with drought (Adger, et al., 2007).

The decision to response is dynamic and influenced by economic and natural resources, social networks, entitlements, institutions and governance, human resources, and technology (Ibid).

Furthermore, women in Sub-Saharan Africa have lower levels of education; they have smaller farms, less access to markets, credit and other inputs which also might be a factor limiting their response strategies to the consequence of climate change (Blackden and Wodon, 2006).

In recent times, a significant number of people in Ethiopia are being affected chronically by drought and/or flooding, leading to the deaths of people and loss of assets and this problem is very serious in the arid and semi-arid areas (Yohannes Mebratu, 2009).

According the data of the Woreda Dubti is one of the arid and partially drought affected areas. As a result, the livelihoods of several women are endangered and limited their decisions to employ response strategies to climate change due to lack of rainfall and other climatic change problem. Though, there is insufficient of empirical analysis carried out to elucidate the specific factors that influence women’s decision to adopt response strategies to climate change. Therefore, the general objective of this article is to examine the determinant factors of women’s response strategies to climate change in Dubti Woreda, Ethiopia. More specifically, this article has two research questions:

-What are the existing women response strategies to the consequence of climate change?

-What are the factors that affect women response strategies to the consequence of climate change?

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Description of the Study Area

Dubti is one of the { HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Districts_of_Ethiopia" \o "Districts of Ethiopia" } in the { HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afar_Region" \o "Afar Region" } of { HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopia" \o "Ethiopia" } Part of the { HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_Zone_1_(Afar)" \o "Administrative Zone 1 (Afar)" } , Dubti is bordered on the south by the { HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somali_Region" \o "Somali Region" } , on the southwest by { HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mille_(woreda)" \o "Mille (woreda)" } , on the west by { HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chifra_(woreda)" \o "Chifra (woreda)" } , on the northwest by the { HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_Zone_4_(Afar)" \o "Administrative Zone 4 (Afar)" } on the north by { HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kori_(woreda)" \o "Kori (woreda)" } on the northeast by { HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elidar_(woreda)" \o "Elidar (woreda)" } on the east by { HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asayita_(woreda)" \o "Asayita (woreda)" } and on the southeast by { HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afambo_(woreda)" \o "Afambo (woreda)" } Towns in Dubti include { HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubti" \o "Dubti"} { HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Logiya action=edit redlink=1" \o "Logiya (page does not exist)" } and { HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semera" \o "Semera" }

The average elevation in this woreda is 503 meters above sea level; the highest point in Dubti is { HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mount_Manda_Hararo action=edit redlink=1" \o "Mount Manda Hararo (page does not exist)" } 600 meters (Hailu Ejara, 2008) Rivers include the { HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Awash_River" \o "Awash River" }, which splits the Woreda into northern and southern parts, and its tributary the { HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logiya_River" \o "Logiya River" }. Alongside the Awash are the Dubti Marshes, which cover an area 34 by 12 kilometers, and whose dominant vegetation is { HYPERLINK "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phragmites" \o "Phragmites" }(Robert Mepham, R. H. Hughes, and J. S. Hughes, 1992). These marshes are under encroachment by the { HYPERLINK Tendaho Cotton Plantation, whose fields surround the town of Dubti. As of 2008, Dubti has 314 kilometers of all-weather gravel road; about 22.33% of the total population has access to drinking water (Hailu Ejara, 2008).

Based on the 2007 national census conducted by the Central Statistical Agency of Ethiopia (CSA), this Woreda has a total population of 65,342, of whom 34,893 are men and 30,449 women; 32,940 or 50.41% are urban inhabitants; 88.01% of the population were Muslim, and 11.46% were Orthodox Christians (Afar Census, 2007). A sample enumeration performed by the CSA in 2001 interviewed 1676 farmers in this woreda, who held an average of 0.72 hectares of land. Of the 1.21 square kilometers of private land surveyed, 28.15% were under cultivation, 64.53% fallow, 3.46% was devoted to other uses (AgSE, 2007). For the land under cultivation in this woreda, 27.9% in planted in cereals like maize; none of the land was planted in pulses and vegetables. All of the farmers reporting only raised livestock. For land tenure in this woreda, 94% own their land; (Ibid).

Figure 1: Location of Dubti Woreda, Afar

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

Source: Dubti weather forecast.com, (2017)

Research Design

This article designed as a cross-sectional research design and survey study. This is because the cross-sectional research design allows data to be collected at one point in time (Mbwambo, 2007). The design also has a greater degree of accuracy in social science studies than other design (Casley and Kumar, 1998).

Research Approach

This article employed qualitative and quantitative research approaches. Qualitative approaches to research are concerned with the subjective assessment of attitudes, opinion and behaviour while quantitative research is based on the measurement of quantity or amount which is applicable to phenomena that can be expressed in terms of quantity (Kothari, 2004).

Data Types and Sources

As a way to collect a reliable and relevant data the researcher has employed both primary and secondary sources of data. Accordingly, primary data were collected from women residing in Dubti Woreda and from Kebelle chairpersons as the main source of data. Moreover, the article has also employed secondary sources of data in order to triangulate the primary data analysis.

Sampling Techniques

There are 3 Kebelles in Dubti Woreda. Therefore, the researcher selected two Kebelles by employing a non-probability sampling particularly a purposive sampling. The main reason for the researcher to select the two Kebelles is the degree of vulnerability to climate change, drought and the presence of a large number of women.

The women who are living in the selected Kebelles are the target population of the article and for particular selection the article employed a probability sampling design. More specifically, the article employed systematic random sampling. Wherein, the researcher initially obtained the whole list of women from the Woreda administration and then selected the samples using the nth interval, in which the first unit of the sample selected at random and the subsequent units are selected in a systematic way.

For the selection of key informants a judgmental (non-probability) sampling method was employed. In this regard, the specific individuals considered as key informants in the study were selected by the researcher because the researcher believes that these informants are well experienced and can give detailed information.

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