Abstract:
Recently, climate change is becoming a global phenomenon, but its impact is unevenly
distributed among the regions, economic class, age class and gender. Therefore, objective
of this study was to assess level of gender vulnerability, perception and adaptation options
against climate change in Meta District of eastern Ethiopia. Both qualitative and
quantitative data were obtained from primary and secondary sources. Primary data were
collected from 193 randomly selected household heads through household survey, focus
group discussions, key informant interviewees and observation. Secondary data on
temperature and rainfall for the period 1988 to 2018 were acquired from Ethiopian
national meteorological service agency. Vulnerability was analyzed by integrated
vulnerability assessment method through the construction of indices from the selected
indicators of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity. The indicators were weighted
using principal component analysis (PCA). Descriptive statistics and Likert scale
measurement were used to analyze perception of smallholder farmers. A multivariate
probit model was used to identify factors affecting household heads’ choice of adaptation
options to climate change. Majority of the respondents, 90.2% of male and 73.6% of
female headed households perceived that climate change prevail in their locality in the last
three decades.Climate analysis showed that the area has experienced increased annual
minimum and maximum temperature by a factor of 0.14 0
c and 0.0050
cin the past three
decades, respectively and decreased annual rainfall by a factor of 0.792 mm during the
study period.The result of multivariate probit model revealed that the likelihood of
household heads to adopt soil and water conservation practices, adjusting planting date,
drought tolerant and improved variety and crop diversification were 77.2 %, 56.9 %, 53.9
% and 31.6 %, respectively. It also showed that the joint probability of adopting and
failure to adopt all adaptation strategies were 9.5 % and 1.9%, respectively.The result of
gander vulnerability analysis indicates that, women are more vulnerable to climate change
than men. Therefore, it is necessary to formulate and implement gender-sensitive and
context-specific policies and programs to reduce the vulnerabilities of women to climate
change.
