This document discusses the importance of considering context specificity and gender equity for scaling up climate-smart agriculture (CSA). It notes that climate change affects women more acutely due to gender inequalities. Vulnerability and adaptation analyses require gender analysis to understand differences in capacity. Both policy and program opportunities exist at various levels to ensure gender-equitable investments in CSA. Program design and implementation should include mandatory gender analysis and power assessments to develop equitable solutions and monitor progress on gender goals.

1. Gender Equity and Adaptive Capacity:
Essentials for scaling up CSA
Karl Deering - April 14 – 2015

2. The Context Specificity Challenge
• Specific agro-ecological and wider ecosystem contexts
• Hydro-meteorological and wider climate change contexts
• Market, value chains and agricultural systems contexts
• Political economy and local economy contexts
• Social – including intra-household contexts
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3. The social analysis challenge
• Climate change does not affect everyone in the same
way: women experience the effects of climate change
more acutely due to gender inequalities and structural
disadvantages
• Vulnerability and capacity analysis necessarily requires
gender and power analysis
• Gender-specific differences in adaptation and mitigation
capacity can and should be incorporated in the design
and implementation of our programming
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4. FAO
CCAFS
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5. Adaptation and adaptive capacity - lessons learned
• Connecting institutions and networks can improve
governance and inclusive service delivery
• Decentralising and democratising information generation
and information delivery will help reach equity
• Innovation and uptake will improve with participatory
farmer-led approaches
• Flexible decision-making and confidence in dealing with
uncertainty improves with participatory scenario planning
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6. Opportunities
• Policy opportunities at global and continental level to
ensure gender equitable investments and programmes
• Programme opportunities at national, sub-national and
community levels
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7. Programme design opportunities
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8. Programme implementation opportunities
• Include gender and power analysis as a mandatory
operational and design feature of any project or
programme aspiring to be climate smart agriculture
• Monitor and assess progress against gender equity
markers established at design stage
• Recognise that gender is about power relationships and
evaluate gender dynamics not only in absolute terms
(numbers) or in isolation (impacts), but also in relative
terms (gender gaps, changes in gender relations)
• Build capacity in gender and social analysis for upstream
and downstream practitioners
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9. Conclusion
• Gender analysis allows policy makers, practitioners and
researchers to understand how women and men could gain
equitable access to resources to allow them to make better
decisions on how to tackle climate change
• We can achieve success at scale with CSA where the roles,
responsibilities, opportunities and choices available to
women and men are not pre-determined at birth – but can
be developed according to capacities, aspirations and rights
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