Apr 23, 2024
This entry received 2nd prize in an AY2023/2024 op-ed competition by Bridging GAP (Gender and Policy), a student group at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy which aims to enhance awareness of the importance of gender among public policy students.
Gunamaya BK, a 42-year-old mother of two, leaves her house early every day to go to her farm and returns only twice during the day: once to prepare her kids for school, and again to finish domestic chores. This is a recurring day for Gunamaya, one that has been taking place for the last seven years.
After her husband and her father-in-law migrated to India for better work opportunities from their home in Bajura, a remote district in Far West Nepal, Gunamaya had stepped into the role of the caretaker of the family and the farm, only to find herself woefully unprepared. While she had prior experience in plantation and harvesting, she had limited knowledge, understanding, and confidence regarding the purchase of seeds, fertilizsers, ploughing, networking, and dealing with the day-to-day climate stress. The district itself was ill-equipped to serve the demands of its residents and agricultural farmlands, in addition to her lack of prior experience and training in farm management.
This is reflective of the history that the Nepali economy has been fuelled by remittances and aid, however, the impacts of climate-induced male migration on the non-migrating household members, particularly women in agricultural households, have been accorded less priority.
While the Far West region of Nepal is considered a subsistence-based agricultural economy with approximately 94.7 per cent agricultural households, it is also the poorest region. Not much has changed on the ground, despite the Government of Nepal’s 15th National Plan (2019–2024) declaring that the promotion of sustainability of the agricultural economy will be prioritised. A few transformational changes that have occurred include the emergence of agriculture user groups, seed banks, transportation services, cooperatives, private sector, and donor agency involvement in market research and produce distribution, discussions about establishing environment units in local municipalities to integrate climate adaptation plans to socioeconomic development plans, and so forth. However, the income from agriculture is still not enough to sustain the livelihoods.
Climate change exacerbates this issue further by increasing the vulnerabilities of drought, flood, drying springs, and lack of irrigation facilities – all of which threaten the possibility of income sustainability as there is limited alternate opportunities readily available. Particularly in Bajura, there have been reports of eight months of drought in a year, erratic rainfall patterns, and just around 4 per cent of households being able to produce enough to support themselves. Climate-induced stress in addition to lack of income continues to plague the Far West. As a result, Far West is perplexed by abject poverty, malnutrition, excessive reliance on rice that must be brought from the Central region rather than millets that can be cultivated there, and low investment in infrastructure.
In light of such distress, the literature on agriculture and climate-induced migration suggests that new economics of labour migration take place. This perspective views migration as a family decision, driven by the pursuit to maximise income and, as a result, sending family members away from their hometown in search of greater income and an improvement in the family’s socioeconomic status. Because of the external migration of men in increasing numbers, women’s involvement in farms and participation (as members) in agriculture user groups, mothers’ group or Ama Samuha and cooperatives have increased; however, they do not inevitably advance to the decision-making positions that men formerly held.
Similar to Gunamaya, most women who come from agricultural households with migrant husbands face the constraint of lack of time to emerge into leadership roles, which limits their ability to participate and perform as decision-makers, and thus face time poverty. An increase in women’s workload is considered by some experts as an indirect effect of climate change. When some migrants return to their home districts, there are no reintegration plans in the community and eventually, women continue to be disproportionately burdened as there is reduced capacity for them to be invested in off-farm activities. This creates a deeper level of gender inequality and challenges their resilience.
Without understanding the interlinkages between climate change, agriculture and migration, the resultant climate change adaptation policies become stand-alone where policy problems, means, actors and agencies are not effectively identified. The climate change adaptation plans, disaster recovery plans, livelihood sustenance plans and so forth that are formed at the local levels are viewed as a stop or in isolation. Policy feedback as a loop is also disregarded, which further creates inefficiencies in the region.
Policy recommendations
To develop sustainable and climate-resilient agriculture ecosystems that can combat gender inequality, it is essential to analyse gendered vulnerability to climate change. For this:
Path dependency analysis in policy-making: Identifying the causes of the increased gender vulnerability should be accorded the highest priority as it will aid in understanding whether the vulnerabilities have continued due to institutional inertia or social norms.
Most often, in the field of migration, it is believed that most developing countries follow similar policies as quick-fix low-cost solutions because analysing unique root causes becomes expensive and demands more resources. Path dependency analysis in policymaking, in this manner, could help in understanding the pattern and persistence of the policies adopted and their effects on climate change, migration and gender norms, and agricultural economy.
Reducing policy uncertainties: Climate change adaptation plans in Nepal are mostly formulated with the assumption that it has a uniform effect on everyone. However, as evidenced, it often affects women more by increasing their responsibilities and even differs depending on the age, caste, ethnicity, and class. Therefore, policies that reduce uncertainties through a thorough analysis of the root causes, structures, and agenda should be prioritized.
Using existing networks: Using the existing networks of multi-stakeholder platforms is essential rather than developing new networks. For instance, in Far West Nepal, there are government platforms (municipalities, agriculture sections), academic platforms (vocational training institutes), non-government platforms (social capital groups formed by agricultural bonded labourers, agriculture user groups, mothers’ groups), donor agencies, private sectors, etc. They form the policy community in the region, which should be utilised to formulate region-centric policies by taking into account the perspectives of diverse stakeholders through their engagement.