GENDERED VULNERABILITY, PERCEPTION AND ADAPTATION OPTIONS OF SMALLHOLDER FARMERS AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE IN META DISTRICT, EASTERN ETHIOPIA

Recently, climate change is becoming a global phenomenon, but its impact is unevenly distributed among the regions, economic class, age class and gender. Therefore, objective of this study was to assess level of gender vulnerability, perception and adaptation options against climate change in Meta District of eastern Ethiopia. Both qualitative and quantitative data were obtained from primary and secondary sources. Primary data were collected from 193 randomly selected household heads through household survey, focus group discussions, key informant interviewees and observation. Secondary data on temperature and rainfall for the period 1988 to 2018 were acquired from Ethiopian national meteorological service agency. Vulnerability was analyzed by integrated vulnerability assessment method through the construction of indices from the selected indicators of exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity. The indicators were weighted using principal component analysis (PCA). Descriptive statistics and Likert scale measurement were used to analyze perception of smallholder farmers. A multivariate probit model was used to identify factors affecting household heads’ choice of adaptation options to climate change. Majority of the respondents, 90.2% of male and 73.6% of female headed households perceived that climate change prevail in their locality in the last three decades.Climate analysis showed that the area has experienced increased annual minimum and maximum temperature by a factor of 0.14 0 c and 0.0050 cin the past three decades, respectively and decreased annual rainfall by a factor of 0.792 mm during the study period.The result of multivariate probit model revealed that the likelihood of household heads to adopt soil and water conservation practices, adjusting planting date, drought tolerant and improved variety and crop diversification were 77.2 %, 56.9 %, 53.9 % and 31.6 %, respectively. It also showed that the joint probability of adopting and failure to adopt all adaptation strategies were 9.5 % and 1.9%, respectively.The result of gander vulnerability analysis indicates that, women are more vulnerable to climate change than men. Therefore, it is necessary to formulate and implement gender-sensitive and context-specific policies and programs to reduce the vulnerabilities of women to climate change.