Enhancing women’s empowerment and climate-adaptive capacities in aquaculture in climate hotspots in Zambia

Mudege, N. N., Lecoutere, E., Arhin-Sam, K., Kihoro, E., Kakwasha, K. and Manyise, T. 2025. Enhancing women’s empowerment and climate-adaptive capacities in aquaculture in climate hotspots in Zambia. CGIAR GENDER Impact Platform Working Paper #028. Nairobi, Kenya: CGIAR GENDER Impact Platform.

Aquaculture, the farming of aquatic organisms like fish, is crucial for food security, income and employment in sub-Saharan Africa. However, gender inequalities hinder women’s agency and climate-adaptive capacities in this sector. Women often face limited access to productive assets and climate-smart technologies and experience restrictive social norms. These constraints result in gendered divisions of labor, inequitable benefit distribution and disparities in resource access and power within the aquaculture value chain. Climate change affects water quality, fish health and overall production, thereby posing economic challenges to communities that rely on aquaculture and exacerbating gender inequalities.

This study explores whether addressing gender constraints in aquaculture can enhance women’s empowerment and climate-adaptive capacities. The study uses a mixed-methods quasi-experimental design and draws on primary data collected in October 2022 in Northern and Luapula provinces, climate change hotspots where gender equality and climate-adaptive capacities are acutely challenged. It examines the extent to which gender-intentional and gender-responsive aquaculture interventions by WorldFish in Zambia that address some of these constraints—such as women’s limited agency and limited access to technology, information and knowledge—are associated with women’s empowerment, better food and nutrition outcomes and enhanced climate-adaptive capacities. The research additionally compares project-level Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI) measures between treatment and control groups.

Findings reveal a positive relationship between these interventions and women’s access to aquaculture information, involvement in decision-making, adoption of climate-smart practices, and improved food security. However, a weak negative relationship is noted regarding women’s control over fishpond income. Qualitative insights emphasize the importance of women role models and of cooperatives to improve access to land as well as the challenges of gendered roles in control of resources and in decision-making.