Editing Test:SRCCL/Chapter-1 (section)

== 1.4.2 Gender agency as a critical factor in climate and land sustainability outcomes ==

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Environmental resource management is not gender neutral. Gender is an essential variable in shaping ecological processes and change, building better prospects for livelihoods and sustainable development (Resurrección 2013 <sup>[[#fn:r876|876]]</sup> ) (Cross-Chapter Box 11 in Chapter 7). Entrenched legal and social structures and power relations constitute additional stressors that render women’s experience of natural resources disproportionately negative when compared to men. Socio-economic drivers and entrenched gender inequalities affect land-based management (Agarwal 2010 <sup>[[#fn:r877|877]]</sup> ). The intersections between climate change, gender and climate adaptation takes place at multiple scales: household, national and international, and adaptive capacities are shaped through power and knowledge.

Germaine to the gender inequities is the unequal access to land-based resources. Women play a significant role in agriculture (Boserup 1989 <sup>[[#fn:r878|878]]</sup> ; Darity 1980 <sup>[[#fn:r879|879]]</sup> ) and rural economies globally (FAO 2011 <sup>[[#fn:r880|880]]</sup> ), but are well below their share of labour in agriculture globally (FAO 2011). In 59% of 161 surveyed countries, customary, traditional and religious practices hinder women’s land rights (OECD 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r881|881]]</sup> ). Moreover, women typically shoulder disproportionate responsibility for unpaid domestic work including care-giving activities (Beuchelt and Badstue 2013 <sup>[[#fn:r882|882]]</sup> ) and the provision of water and firewood (UNEP 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r883|883]]</sup> ). Exposure to violence restricts, in large regions, their mobility for capacity-building activities and productive work outside the home (Day et al. 2005 <sup>[[#fn:r884|884]]</sup> ; UNEP 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r885|885]]</sup> ). Large-scale development projects can erode rights, and lead to over-exploitation of natural resources. Hence, there are cases where reforms related to land-based management, instead of enhancing food security, have tended to increase the vulnerability of both women and men and reduce their ability to adapt to climate change (Pham et al. 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r886|886]]</sup> ). Access to, and control over, land and land-based resources is essential in taking concrete action on land-based mitigation, and inadequate access can affect women’s rights and participation in land governance and management of productive assets.

Timely information, such as from early warning systems, is critical in managing risks, disasters, and land degradation, and in enabling land-based adaptation. Gender, household resources and social status, are all determinants that influence the adoption of land-based strategies (Theriault et al. 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r887|887]]</sup> ). Climate change is not a lone driver in the marginalisation of women; their ability to respond swiftly to its impacts will depend on other socio-economic drivers that may help or hinder action towards adaptive governance. Empowering women and removing gender-based inequities constitutes a mechanism for greater participation in the adoption of sustainable practices of land management (Mello and Schmink 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r888|888]]</sup> ). Improving women’s access to land (Arora-Jonsson 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r889|889]]</sup> ) and other resources (water) and means of economic livelihoods (such as credit and finance) are the prerequisites to enable women to participate in governance and decision-making structures (Namubiru-Mwaura 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r890|890]]</sup> ). Still, women are not a homogenous group, and distinctions through elements of ethnicity, class, age and social status, require a more nuanced approach and not a uniform treatment through vulnerability lenses only. An intersectional approach that accounts for various social identifiers under different situations of power (Rao 2017 <sup>[[#fn:r891|891]]</sup> ) is considered suitable to integrate gender into climate change research and helps to recognise overlapping and interdependent systems of power (Djoudi et al. 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r892|892]]</sup> ; Kaijser and Kronsell 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r893|893]]</sup> ; Moosa and Tuana 2014 <sup>[[#fn:r894|894]]</sup> ; Thompson-Hall et al. 2016 <sup>[[#fn:r895|895]]</sup> ).

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