Women in Africa often bear the brunt of whatever goes wrong in their country, whether it involves extreme weather conditions like drought or floods, civil conflict, or diseases like COVID-19, ebola and the Marburg virus. Why? Because many families in Africa are female-led households and mom, often uneducated and poor, must somehow provide for her family’s needs.

Dr Adrino Mazenda, Senior Researcher and Associate Professor in Economic Management Sciences at the University of Pretoria, in a recent article published in The Conversation, researched how women-headed households in Liberia in West Africa cope with these challenges. The same hardships face women all over the continent. Liberia is one of the ten poorest countries in the world. The effect of two civil wars between 1989 and 2003, ebola outbreaks in 2014/15, and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, left the country’s people in dire straits.

The biggest challenge is the underdeveloped agricultural sector that fails to provide a livelihood for more than 70% of the population, leading to food insecurity for 47% of them. Especially in rural areas, where 51% of the population live, food insecurity means a lack of access to enough safe and nutritious food for normal child growth and development and an active and healthy life.

About 50% of the land is suitable for cultivation, but only a small portion is farmed by traditional smallholder farmers with limited access to education and financial and technological resources, which limit their ability to invest in farming equipment, seeds and fertilisers. Many commercial farms are run by foreign nationals.

Women in agriculture

Women, who account for about 80% of agricultural labour in Liberia, produce 93% of the food crop. However, despite the important role they play, they are most affected by food insecurity. Socio-economic factors such as a lack of education, marital status, insufficient crop revenue, inadequate government support and land conflicts play an important role in their plight, as they are the most vulnerable group in accessing agricultural productive resources.

How do women in Liberia cope?

Dr Mazenda’s study set out to identify the coping strategies and food insecurity experiences of female headed
agricultural households as primary caregivers who have the responsibility of managing food availability, preparation and making sure their families eat.

The study found that 90% of the women who were interviewed expressed concern about not having enough food, 93,7% did not eat nutritious food, 95,5% tended to consume only a few kinds of foods, and 89,2% skipped meals altogether due to financial constraints. In some instances, women experienced extreme food shortages, which resulted in not having any food at all (26,1%), going to sleep hungry (14,7%), or going a whole day without eating (12,8%).

Coping mechanisms

Women in these households used different coping strategies to alleviate food insecurity by reducing the size of meals, eating leftovers and skipping meals daily. They also borrowed money, sold assets and reduced health expenses. Depending on the impact of the lack of food (least, moderate and most severe), different households had different coping strategies. Least severe household coping strategies did not affect a household’s well-being in the long term.

These included selling non-essential household assets or goods, spending savings, and purchasing food on credit or borrowing food. Moderately severe household coping strategies that reduced households’ ability to get out of the difficulties they are in. Some withdrew children from school and harvested immature crops. Female heads of households with lower levels of education were likely to reduce healthcare expenses and resort to begging.

Most severe household coping strategies that had the potential to cause irreparable breakdown of households, included illegal or degrading income activities (2,2%), selling the last female animals (4,5%), and migrating with the entire household (6,7%).

How do women in Southern Africa cope?

Gracsious Maviza, a gender and migration scientist and regional head for Southern Africa in the team of the CGIAR (formerly the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research), focus on climate change and researched the effect of climate change on women in Southern Africa countries. The CGIAR is a global partnership that unites international organisations engaged in research about the effect of climate change on food security. Southern Africa is one of the regions most affected by climate variability in temperature and rainfall patterns. The region has experienced increasingly intense drought, cyclones and floods. As a result of persistent droughts, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi earlier this year each officially declared a state of emergency.

The climate change influenced the availability of water and agricultural yield, which led to food insecurity. As a result, tensions within and between communities intensified, as did grievances against local and national authorities. In Zambia, persistent droughts caused farmers from the southern province to move the northern part of the country.
Conflict arose as the displaced farmers’ farming practices were different from those of the host communities, causing anxiety. In the northern part of Mozambique, where some people had lost their land and could no longer farm, these people joined nonstate armed groups as an alternative way to make a living.

The men and young people who join these groups gain the protection, access to aid and money from the leaders of the groups as appreciation of their loyalty and services. Climate variability and change are not the only sources of instability in the region, but when combined with existing problems, climate change disasters can increase the
danger of conflict. Existing problems in some areas include lack or inadequate water and energy infrastructure,
unsympathetic or biased social and political institutions, and a lack of resources for climate risk management and adaptation.

How does climate, migration and conflict affect women?

Gender, migration, climate, peace and security is a complex mix, because gender shapes how individuals and communities experience and respond to a lack of food, a degraded environment, disrupted livelihoods, forced migration and displacement.

Climate change affect men and women differently. Women are usually responsible for water, food and energy supply within households, items that are directly affected by climate change. Thus, they are frontline responders to the negative effects of climate variability and extremes. As these resources become scarcer, the women’s workload increases as she must travel a longer distance to fetch water and firewood. As a result, they are less able to participate in economic or educational activities.

They may also be more affected by violence and displacement, as they have to protect themselves, their children and older persons in their care. Yet, women are key agents in building resilience and peace. According to Gracsious, they often play crucial roles in conflict resolution, building united communities, and the management of natural resources.

Since the lack of scarce resources usually result in the loss of livelihoods, men are more likely to migrate longer distances and even outside their country in search of work to provide for their families. In families that are displaced by climate disasters, the power dynamics change. When it becomes harder for men to maintain their roles as breadwinner, they may revert to gender violence.

How can policy empower women?

Agricultural and food-related policies must be based on a better understanding of how gender, migration, climate, peace and security affect access to agricultural productive resources and food security. Policies that guarantee women secure land tenure and property rights are needed to enable them to invest in and cultivate their land without the fear of losing it. Women need to be engaged in community decision-making processes related to agriculture and food security. Women must be provided with knowledge about sustainable agricultural practices.

Many do not even complete primary school, and their lack of knowledge is apparent in their use of slash-and-burn subsistence agriculture practices. Alternative income-generating activities, including cultivating high demand
vegetables or herbs for sale at local markets, or rearing animals for consumption and sale, must be encouraged. Cooperatives can help pool resources, access larger markets and reduce input costs.

Source references

Dwomoh, D., Agyabeng, K., Tuffour, H.O. et al. (2023) Modelling inequality in access to agricultural productive resources and socioeconomic determinants of household food security in Ghana: a cross-sectional study. Agric
Econ 11, 24 https://doi.org/10.1186/s40100-023-00267-6 https://agrifoodecon.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40100-023-00267-6#citeas

Mavisa, G., Gadu, S. (2024) Extreme weather is disrupting lives in southern Africa: new policies are needed to keep the peace. The Conversation https://theconversation.com/extremeweather-is-disrupting-lives-in-southern-africa-new-policies-are-needed-tokeep-the-peace-238840

Mazenda, A. (2024) Food scarcity in Liberia: how women who run households
cope. The Conversation https://theconversation.com/food-scarcity-in-liberia-how-women-who-run-households-cope-239610?htm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20October%207%20202420-%203120431842&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20October%20
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Worst southern Africa food crisis risks being forgotten, UN says (2024) Bloomberg

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