Gender-Sensitive Approaches Improve Characterisation of Resilience in African Pastoral Systems

Strategies for improving resilience in African pastoral systems face increasing scrutiny, particularly in the context of climate shocks. Here, we explore the influence of gender dynamics in relation to resilience of dryland socio-ecological systems and pastoralist communities in northern Kenya. The findings challenge contemporary perspectives of women’s adaptive capacity and traditional gender roles, highlighting women’s nuanced understanding of household needs and ability to innovate during crises through community savings groups, fodder production and enterprise diversification. Men’s resilience, traditionally linked with their command of livestock mobility and herd management, is often undermined by recurring droughts, compounding psychological stress that emerges as a key concern. Our results highlight an urgent need for gender-sensitive approaches towards characterisation of resilience, including local constructs of adaptive capacity, together with the need to support relational forms of resilience in ways that bridge social, ecological and cultural systems. This article was published open access under a CC BY-NC 4.0 licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ .