Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme climate and weather events. From droughts to floods to wildfires, the magnitude and timing of these types of events are unprecedented in their scale and severity.
Despite contributing less than 10 per cent to global greenhouse emissions, Africa disproportionately feels the effects of climate change. More than 110 million people on the continent were directly affected by weather, climate and water-related hazards in 2022, with populations experiencing diminishing access to natural resources, declines in agricultural productivity and displacement from their homes.
In Kenya, severe rainfall from March to May this year led to extreme flooding, which affected 42 of the 47 counties. On May 3, the UN reported that at least 205,000 people were affected across 21 counties and 194,305 individuals were displaced. On May 20, the Kenya Red Cross reported that hundreds of people had lost their lives.
Marking the second time in less than eight months that floods had forced some residents from their homes to shelters and displacement camps, the extreme weather event exacerbated the challenges faced by communities still recovering from a fragile humanitarian situation.
From strained access to health services to a heightened risk of gender-based violence, here are five ways severe flooding and extreme weather events affect women and girls:
While the need for sexual and reproductive health services is crucial during extreme weather events, access to quality care often falls. Pregnant individuals face limited access to reproductive care, resulting in more births without medical assistance.
When climate-related disruptions to health services occur, access to contraception is typically not viewed as a priority and access to resources that support reproductive choice become difficult to get consistently amid damaged infrastructure. This affects the ability of women and girls to complete their education, progress their careers and choose if or when to become pregnant.
Previous periods of droughts, which are intensified by climate change, increase the vulnerability of communities to flooding. The degradation of vegetation cover and weakening of natural drainage systems make flash floods more likely when heavy rain falls, leaving communities at risk.
Due to the failure of harvests, a lack of pasture for pastoralist communities, livestock losses and decreased surface water availability, droughts push people away from their homes. Some Kenyan and Ethiopian families have migrated to other places where water sources are more readily available but lack adequate structural protection from the rain. This increases their exposure to severe flooding when extreme rainfall occurs.
When access to clean water and food is scarce, as is the case when droughts and severe floods occur, women and children are the most impacted. As shared in this blog on the ripple effects of clean water and sanitation on gender equality, water supplies are often contaminated or destroyed along with sanitation facilities in the aftermath of disasters, exerting a disproportionate pressure on women and girls who are more likely to be affected by food insecurity and responsible for collecting water for their families and securing basic household needs.
Vulnerability to flooding and other climate shocks is interconnected with displacement. Of the world’s 114 million refugees and internally displaced people, 60 per cent are in countries on the front lines of climate change.
Between April and May, hundreds of thousands of people were forced from their homes in the space of a few weeks across the East African countries of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, Ethiopia and Tanzania.
When displacement by the impacts of climate change occurs, women and girls make up four out of five people displaced and face shortages of menstrual supplies at disaster-relief camps. Leading to limited access to adequate water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) facilities, severe flooding sees women, girls and other people who menstruate face several challenges in their ability to effectively manage their menstruation.
The impacts of extreme climate events are felt greatest by the poorest. More likely to be directly dependent on activities most affected by climate change, the people with the lowest incomes are the least able to protect themselves before disaster strikes and the least able to navigate the impacts. Intertwined with the effects of gender norms, unequal pay and the unequal distribution of unpaid care work, this sees women and girls work harder, walk further and spend more time securing resources for their families and communities. It can also contribute to a rise in child marriages and lower rates of education access that intensify pre-existing inequalities.
In the case of the recent floods in the East Africa region, the shifts from droughts to floods to droughts mean that women are left trying to rebuild their lives and care for their families in uncertain conditions and increasingly unpredictable weather patterns.
Women and girls may face obstacles to accessing rescue services as a result of barriers to technology access and gender norms. In cases where men are considered principal decision makers, women and girls may have limited agency over how they navigate the onset of an extreme weather event.
Inequalities, displacement and barriers to accessing health, financial and social supports heighten existing dangers and magnify the vulnerability faced by women and girls prior to, during and in the aftermath of extreme weather events. As growing evidence highlights, disasters and extreme weather events, like severe floods, can expose women to greater dangers as they flee and higher incidences of domestic and gender-based violence.
