Rice-based production systems in the Philippines play a crucial role in food security and are highly vulnerable to climate-related risks such as flooding, drought and high temperatures. CGIAR’s Research Initiative on Climate Resilience (ClimBeR) has been conducting activities to increase the resilience of smallholder production systems in the Philippines to withstand the effects of climate change. One of these is the Climate-Smart Mapping and Adaptation Planning (CS-MAP, [1]).

With the acknowledgment of climate change as a key development concern, the concept of climate resilience to combat its impacts has gained research and policy impetus. Further, there has been a growing emphasis on gender in climate resilience, given that women are documented as experiencing greater vulnerabilities and adaptation challenges.

The combined effects of climate change, COVID-19 and rising prices shape vulnerabilities of rural communities, differentiated by gender, livelihood, asset ownership (including land and livestock), and type of social protection received. Do gender-responsive socialprotection and complementary programs targeting rural women help strengthen capacities to cope with and adapt to overlapping shocks and stresses? And do they simultaneously reinforce vulnerabilities and reproduce inequalities, as unintended consequences?

As climate change intensifies, its negative impacts on agriculture and food systems are also accelerating, particularly affecting the smallholder vulnerable farmers, the majority of whom are women in developing countries. Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) is designed to contribute to productivity enhancement, and support adaptation and mitigation to build resilience of farmers. However, the evidence on the factors influencing adoption of CSA by women farmers, and the consequent impacts, is scarce.

Climate change has emerged as a challenge that has risen up the global development agenda, with anticipated adverse impacts on agricultural production and food security. Furthermore its disproportionate impacts on women, contributing to increased work burden and adaptation challenges, have been documented extensively. Given this, the concept of ‘climate resilience,’ has gained traction in development planning.

Climate mitigation technologies and practices have the potential to enhance gender equality and women’s resilience to climate change, if underlying gender norms, intersectional social differences, and sociocultural dynamics are addressed in agrifood systems. This is the key takeaway from a 2023 IRRI scoping review of literature and learnings on gender and climate mitigation across six sectors— agro-ecology, agroforestry, conservation agriculture, improved livestock management, renewable energy, and water conservation.

Locally led climate action has emerged as a critical approach to address the challenges posed by climate change at the grassroots level. As the impacts of climate change intensify, communities around the world face a wide range of vulnerabilities such as extreme weather events, water scarcity, rising sea levels, and disruptions to lives and livelihoods. In this context, locally led climate action emphasizes the importance of empowering local communities to take ownership of their adaptation strategies.

Persistent gender and social inequities undermine agri-food systems’ potential to contribute to inclusive and sustainable development. Systems thinking recognizes the interconnectedness and complexity of agri-food systems, emphasizing the need to consider various interrelated components and their dynamic interactions and highlights the need for integrated and transformative strategies that target multiple levels of the agri-food systems, from local to global.

Women in climate-vulnerable and agriculturedependent hotspots, like the Savanna and Upper West regions in northwestern Ghana, experience diverse impacts of climate variability and change, pressures on the natural resource base, and rapid socioeconomic changes. Women’s empowerment influences their ability to build resilience against the impacts of climate change and societal transformations to sustain their agrarian livelihoods. Yet, gendered transformations are not given much attention in policymaking and climateresilience programming.

Climate change poses a significant challenge to farmers worldwide. It affects men and women differently due to their diverse roles, responsibilities, resource access and sociocultural norms. Understanding the gender perspective would help policymakers to develop evidence-based strategies that address unique vulnerabilities, promoting equitable, inclusive adaptation and resilience policies to climate risk. Hence there is a need to evaluate the available evidence base on gendered perspectives in this domain to design effective adaptation policies as well as future research.

Sub-Saharan Africa is facing an expected doubling of human population and tripling of food demand over the next quarter century, posing a range of severe environmental, political, and socio-economic challenges. In some cases, key Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are in direct conflict, raising difficult policy and funding decisions, particularly in relation to trade-offs between food production, social inequality, and ecosystem health.