Resilience and vulnerability in climate change and farming with Oxfam

Inequality exposes poor people to risk more than the wealthy, and poor people are less able to cope with risk. In countries that are more unequal, it is harder for people to pull themselves out of poverty.

Taxation
Oxfam recommends that risk should be shared more equally, globally and across societies. States have the legal and political responsibility to reduce the risks faced by poor people, and ensure that they are borne more evenly across society.

Poor people need greater access to decision-making and to be better protected through greater access to services like social protection and health paid for by more progressive taxes. This includes setting up and funding truly effective systems that tackle underlying drivers of risk and vulnerability, and putting in place systems to prepare for and respond to disasters; providing livelihood options so that people can earn a living wage; ensuring equal access to services and to political participation in society, and sharing risk through social insurance.

All of this costs money, and governments, supported as necessary by donors, must use progressive tax systems and other means, including reducing corruption, to effectively redistribute risk in their societies.

Campaigning
Campaigning is an essential part of Oxfam’s work. Oxfam is challenging world leaders to take more ambitious action against climate change.

Oxfam is campaigning for a global climate change deals that:

• Reduces carbon emissions

• Provides sufficient finance to enable vulnerable countries and communities to adapt to climate change.

All of these campaigns work to empower vulnerable communities and further enable them to become resilient.

Advocacy
Without the skills to negotiate and the ability to influence decision-making, vulnerable farmers may be unable to demand the investments they need, and will remain marginalised.

Empowering Women 
At the heart of Oxfam’s approach lies an understanding that reducing vulnerability requires more than technical solutions; it calls for a redistribution of power and a commitment to tackling the many forms of inequality that are on the rise.

Women and girls, with their varied roles as food producers and providers, care-givers, and economic actors, are most likely to be affected by disasters, climate change and food price shocks. The impacts of shocks have repercussions at the household level, which often exacerbate women’s vulnerability.

Investments in resilience will not ‘trickle down’ to women if they do not address deep-rooted gender inequality and the disproportionate burden placed on the shoulders of women living in poverty.

Oxfam has carried out research to ensure that our resilience programmes empower women. Programmes plan for long-term social transformation, designed to shift power inequalities that make women more vulnerable. Resilience projects incorporate techniques to build women’s leadership and self-confidence and promote women’s economic empowerment.

Recommendations for donor nations and developing-country governments
Current funding for climate change adaptation is too small. Major investments in vulnerable farmers are needed to reverse trends and ensure that farmers are not only just able to cope with the shocks and stresses of climate change, but also have the tools to build their resilience and have choices about how to live their lives and make plans.

Oxfam recommends that the international community and national governments make resilience building and reducing inequalities priorities that are embedded in national development plans.

What does Oxfam do to help support farms build resilience to climate change?

Oxfam is working to strengthen livelihoods of those most vulnerable in each community to improve their resilience to disaster. Improving people’s resilience to natural disaster means that they are less likely to be subjected to increased vulnerabilities.

Oxfam is working with communities to avoid them slipping into an emergency when climate change affects their livelihoods. Instead Oxfam helps farmers to adapt their practices to cope with the impacts of climate change. This enables them to produce enough food to feed their families each year, and to flourish even in uncertain climate conditions.

As well as supporting specific communities to become resilient in the face of climate change, Oxfam also works on many other levels to reduce risk and strengthen resilience. Vulnerable small-scale farmers are also affected by policy addressing both climate change mitigation and adaptation to climate change.

Inequality exposes poor people to risk more than the wealthy, and poor people have less ability to cope with risk. In countries that are more unequal, it is harder for people to pull themselves out of poverty.

Climate Resilience Field Schools in Mindanao, Philippines

Where is Mindanao?

Mindanao is the largest and most southern island of over seven thousand that make up the Philippines. Smallholder farmers, those who do not own their land, make up the majority of the population in central Mindanao. Most farmers in the central provinces of Mindanao depend on growing a single crop to sell for income to support their families (usually rice).

What are the issues relating to climate and farming?