In the field of reconstruction processes, it has been frequently argued that disasters provide a window of opportunity for transformation.⁽²⁾ Reconstruction not only implies rebuilding societies, but also transforming the very power relations that led a natural hazard turn into a disaster. In this sense, it has been widely argued that a natural hazard in itself is not a disaster. Rather, it has the potential to become one when it interacts with populations that lack adequate capabilities to cope with it. These capabilities, shaped by the prevailing social, economic and political inequalities, influence in turn the vulnerabilities faced by populations when confronted with hazards such as earthquakes, tropical cyclones or droughts.⁽³⁾

This CAI paper explores one particular dimension of power relations that shapes vulnerabilities during and after disasters: gender relations. By appraising the case study of flood management in Mozambique, this paper seeks to illustrate the gendered effects of mainstream responses to natural disasters by national and international stakeholders. In order to do that, the gender dimensions of the disaster are explored following the contributions of gender analyses to disaster management in three key elements: adaptive capacities, policy planning and gendered vulnerabilities.⁽⁴⁾ Part 1 of this paper introduces the persistent challenge of floods in Mozambique and its major human and socioeconomic impacts. Following that, part 2 illustrates the importance of adaptive capacities by appraising earliest approaches to flood management, in which reconstruction responses tended to be shaped by assumptions on poverty and female-headed households.

Floods in Mozambique: A contemporary but enduring challenge

As climate change effects consolidate over time, the frequency of natural disasters such as droughts, floods and tropical cyclones in Mozambique has increased. In this sense, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has underscored the cyclical but increasingly upward trend with regards to frequency and intensity of these events intimately linked to climate change.⁽⁵⁾ Although Mozambique is responsible for a minimum contribution to greenhouse emissions globally (16 million tonnes expressed in terms of Global Warming Potential),⁽⁶⁾ its geographic location and poor infrastructure renders the country disproportionately burdened by climate change impact.

Given its location in south-eastern Africa, bordering the Mozambique Channel and with several areas below sea level, it has been reported that about 55% of the country’s surface is vulnerable to climate change related disasters, and in particular, to those of hydro-meteorological nature. Moreover, nine major international river basins are located in the country, which also lies in the path of the tropical cyclones formed in the Indian Ocean.  As a result, the central and northern regions have become increasingly exposed to floods. Furthermore, the whole country is prone to cyclones, experiencing three to four per year.⁽⁷⁾

Since 1970, Mozambique has persistently suffered from 34 tropical depressions and a succession of five major flood events. Although major floods were experienced throughout the 1970s and the 1980s,⁽⁸⁾ it is the more recent floods in the 21st century, and particularly in 2013,⁽⁹⁾ that have posed a greater national and international policy challenge, both in terms of short-term management and long-term effects for development.

First of all, the Mozambican Government, in partnership with international humanitarian assistants, has had to deal with immediate consequences such as great numbers of internally displaced and dead people, and their further implications for public health.⁽¹⁰⁾ The heavy rains experienced in January 2013, which disproportionately affected the southern province of Gaza,⁽¹¹⁾ left behind 119 dead people, 420,000 affected and 186,238 displaced people in the following months.⁽¹²⁾

The humanitarian response was deployed along three central clusters coordinated by the Mozambique Government: the Shelter, Water and Sanitation, and Food clusters.⁽¹³⁾ With regards to the Shelter Cluster, the nine temporary accommodation centres set up in Maputo attended almost 5,500 displaced people.⁽¹⁴⁾ Meanwhile, the Mozambican Red Cross, World Vision and the consortium Concern, Save the Children and Care International (COSACA) provided and transported shelter items.⁽¹⁵⁾

Furthermore, floods may increase the incidence of malaria, cholera, diarrhoea and other water-borne diseases.⁽¹⁶⁾ During the 2013 floods, a cholera outbreak was detected causing 17 deaths in the northern region (Cabo Delgado, Niassa and Nampula provinces).⁽¹⁷⁾ Consequently, Mozambican authorities focused their efforts on the cleaning-up process to address sanitation and health concerns through the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Cluster (WASH). The WASH provided safe water supplies, basic sanitation such as emergency latrines, and family hygiene kits.⁽¹⁸⁾

Last, the Food Security Cluster distributed food items in the temporary displacement sites facilitated by the World Food Programme and UNICEF.⁽¹⁹⁾ Thanks to the international effort, the Chokwe, Guija and Chibuto districts in the Gaza Province, currently only present a situation Food Insecurity Phase 2 (also called ‘Stressed’). ⁽²⁰⁾

Nevertheless, the main challenge flourished once flood waters receded. After the 2013 floods, 166,278 hectares of cultivated land were reported to be destroyed, together with the damage of several infrastructures and communication networks, as well as more than 3,500 houses inundated or damaged.⁽²¹⁾ Once affected people gained access to their farmlands and houses, new agricultural inputs such as seeds and tools had to be provided to restart crop production and minimise mid-term food insecurity. The Central Emergency Response Fund allocated US$ 709,038 to this goal. Moreover, returnees were provided with construction materials and skills to rehabilitate the affected or destroyed dwellings, whereas damaged infrastructures were repaired to regain access to villages and basic services.⁽²²⁾

With regards to long-term effects, it has to be underscored that, in a country where the majority of the population earns a living from rain-fed agriculture or fishery and whose economy is strongly natural-resource dependent, major floods involve a significant impact on economic performance.⁽²³⁾ In this sense, the World Bank et al⁽²⁴⁾ have reported fluctuations in the gross domestic product (GDP) and in growth rates of agricultural and non-agricultural sector products. Overall, it has been estimated that the flood related long-term direct losses can be quantified on 150,000 people and 33,000 households affected every year. In particular, 50% of the losses are located in the Gaza and Zambeze provinces. Moreover, 100 km of roads are damaged every year, and the agricultural loss on maize is estimated to be of US$ 43 million.⁽²⁵⁾

Evidently, floods pose a significant challenge to Mozambique not only in terms of short-term management, but also in terms of long-term economic, human and social development. As a consequence, early-warning systems, risk mapping, community awareness and resettlement plans have been implemented with support of international donors in order to reduce the impact of future natural hazards.⁽²⁶⁾

Adaptive capacities: Female-headed households as the target of public policy

Over the past decades, disaster managers have commonly assumed that those who are poor and marginalised are the most likely to experience the negative impacts of the disaster, since they are the ones who have less capacities or resources to cope with it, to prevent the impacts of climate change, or to influence the production of knowledge in the field of disaster management.⁽²⁷⁾ As a consequence, gender-aware responses to disasters have tended to target women and girls based on assumptions of their enhanced poverty levels.⁽²⁸⁾

This assumption can be identified in several programmes that have given response to Mozambican floods. Such is the case of the post-disaster rehabilitation and seed restoration programme launched in 1988 by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), called Gender, Biodiversity and Local Knowledge Systems (LINKS). The programme’s main purpose is to better understand the local knowledge of men and women in order to promote the conservation of biodiversity and enhance food security in the Xai-Xai District (Gaza Province), especially after the floods of 2000.

One of its key merits is its participatory focus and the establishment of an explicit dialogue with the Mozambican Association of Rural Women. As a result, LINKS has been one of the first programmes that have included gender concerns, since the role of women in rural farming and resource management has been recognised.⁽²⁹⁾ Nevertheless, vulnerability is conflated with de facto and de jure female-headed households:

The vulnerable households are those where the husband is absent or missing. Many men from the area work in the gold mines in South Africa. They send home money and their families live in houses that are of generally higher standard than what is common in the village. However, the wives are alone with the burdens of restarting cultivation after the disaster. They may not be in position to walk long ways to look for seeds. The most vulnerable households are those headed by widows. These are decidedly the worst off.⁽³⁰⁾

As a consequence of this analysis, the hypothesis that “[w]omen’s knowledge and skills cannot be fully realised in proper seed management unless they are part of an intact family supported by a husband”⁽³¹⁾ is introduced. Diagnoses such as those by FAO may justify the provision of inputs such as seeds to female-headed households, whereas they may be less likely to receive access to credit, agricultural training or masonry skills than male-headed households.⁽³²⁾ These denied skills may be central for women’s adaptive capacities, that is to say, their capacities to diversify into alternative livelihoods, to adopt effective coping strategies in their farming practices and to adapt their agricultural production to future environmental stress, therefore shaping their immediate vulnerabilities to future natural disasters.⁽³³⁾ This is particularly significant for the southern provinces, which show an exceptionally high proportion of female-headed households (53%)⁽³⁴⁾ and have dealt with a great burden of recent floods.

Further, as theorists such as Chant, Sen, Medeiros and Costa have pointed out,⁽³⁵⁾ the hypothesis that female-headed households are automatically the worst off needs to be nuanced. First, the loss of women’s assets may often be inadequately accounted for after a disaster due to the prevailing perceptions on the poverty levels of households headed by women and the common breadwinning role of men. As a result, the enduring lack of sex-disaggregated data on a disaster’s impact may be further exacerbated.⁽³⁶⁾

Second, alternative formulations to the ‘feminisation of poverty’ thesis, such as Chant’s ‘feminisation of responsibility’, encompass a more holistic conceptualisation of poverty beyond households’ income levels. Inputs such as labour and time invested in household livelihoods are included, and enable the uncovering of situations of secondary poverty faced by women in male-headed households. Similarly, these alternative conceptualisations allow for the recognition of the enhanced subjective wellbeing and decision-making power that women in female-headed households may enjoy, which in turn may enhance their capabilities when coping with future disasters.⁽³⁷⁾

Last, routes to female headship may be different and not always imposed. In this sense, the high number of households having at least one member staying outside the dwelling (reaching levels of 82% in the southern province of Gaza), reflects not only patterns of male out-migration, but also the break-up with traditional forms of marriage and the enhanced economic independence of an increasing number of women.⁽³⁸⁾

Concluding remarks

Recent floods in Mozambique pose an increasingly frequent challenge for the country’s human and socioeconomic development. Hence, the first gender-aware policy responses during reconstruction have emerged. The evidence of income poverty, used as a proxy for gendered vulnerability by international stakeholders, has to be managed carefully, especially when dealing with female-headed households as targets of post-disaster interventions. The case of FAO’s LINKS project in Mozambique illustrates that equating female headship with ‘the poorest of the poor’ may inhibit the development of their adaptive capacities, which are central to coping with future environmental stress. Part two of this paper gives insight on policy planning and gendered vulnerabilities as tools to mainstream gender in post-disaster interventions.

Written by Cristina Rovira Izquierdo ⁽¹⁾

Click here for Part II

NOTES:

(1) Cristina Rovira Izquierdo is a political scientist and ‘La Caixa’ scholarship holder expert on international development and social policy initiatives with a focus on gender issues. Contact Cristina through Consultancy Africa Intelligence's Gender Issues Unit ( gender.issues@consultancyafrica.com). Edited by Kate Morgan.
(2) Bradshaw, S., 2002. Exploring the gender dimensions of reconstruction processes post-hurricane Mitch. Journal of International Development, 14, pp. 871-879.
(3) Bradshaw, S., 2010. “Women, poverty and disasters: Exploring the links through Hurricane Mitch in Nicaragua”, in Chant, S. (ed.). The international handbook of gender and poverty. Edward Elgar: Cheltenham.
(4) The three dimensions are highlighted by Ribeiro, N. and Chaúque, A., ‘Gender and climate change: Mozambique case study’, Heinrich Böll Stiftung Foundation Southern Africa, 2010, http://www.boell.de.
(5) Waterhouse, R., ‘Vulnerability in Mozambique: Patterns, trends and responses’, Paper presented at the IESE Conference ‘Poverty Dynamics and Patterns of Accumulation in Mozambique’, Maputo, 22-23 April 2009, http://www.iese.ac.mz.
(6) Which means a 0.06% of the total CO2 emissions. See UNDP climate change website, http://www.undp.org.
(7) Bambaige, A., ‘National adaptation strategies to climate change impacts. A case study of Mozambique’, Human Development Report Office Occasional Paper 43, 2007, http://hdr.undp.org; ‘Economic vulnerability and disaster risk assessment in Malawi and Mozambique measuring economic risks of droughts and floods’, Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery, 2009, http://www.gfdrr.org.
(8) Of the major floods that occurred in Mozambique in the last century, among the most important are the 1973 (Buzi River), the 1974 (Save River), the 1976 (Incomati River), the 1977 (Limpopo River) and 1984 (Umbeluzi River) floods. Bambaige, A., ‘National adaptation strategies to climate change impacts. A case study of Mozambique’, Human Development Report Office Occasional Paper 43, 2007, http://hdr.undp.org.
(9) In particular, floods were experienced in 2000, 2001, 2007, 2008 and 2013. For more detail, see timeline in Map Report website http://www.mapreport.com.
(10) Bambaige, A., ‘National adaptation strategies to climate change impacts. A case study of Mozambique’, Human Development Report Office Occasional Paper 43, 2007, http://hdr.undp.org.
(11) Followed by Inhambane and Maputo, and to a lesser extent, Zambezia provinces.
(12) All alert warnings were lifted on 19 April 2013, therefore officially ending humanitarian relief tasks. ‘Mozambique floods 2013. Consolidated early recovery strategy’, United Nations Resident Coordinator's Office in Mozambique, 25 April 2013, http://reliefweb.int.
(13) Ibid.
(14) ‘Mozambique floods 2013. Response and recovery proposal’, Humanitarian Country Team, 31 January 2013, http://reliefweb.int.
(15) Ibid.
(16) Dankelman, I., 2002. Climate change: Learning from gender analysis and women's experiences of organising for sustainable development. Gender & Development, 10(2), pp. 21-29.
(17) ‘Mozambique floods 2013. Consolidated early recovery strategy’, United Nations Resident Coordinator's Office in Mozambique, 25 April 2013, http://reliefweb.int.
(18) ‘Mozambique floods 2013. Response and recovery proposal’, Humanitarian Country Team, 31 January 2013,  http://reliefweb.int.
(19) ‘Mozambique floods 2013. Consolidated early recovery strategy’, United Nations Resident Coordinator's Office in Mozambique, 25 April 2013,  http://reliefweb.int.
(20) Five Food Insecurity Phases are detected by the Famine Early Warning Systems: None or Minimal, Stressed, Crisis, Emergency and Catastrophe/Famine. ‘Mozambique food security outlook update’, Famine Early Warning Systems Network, June 2013, http://reliefweb.int.
(21) ‘Mozambique: Flooding. Mozambique emergency situation Report No. 4’, United Nations Office of the Resident Coordinator, 20 February 2013, http://mz.one.un.org.
(22) ‘Mozambique floods 2013. Consolidated early recovery strategy’, United Nations Resident Coordinator's Office in Mozambique, 25 April 2013, http://reliefweb.int.
(23) In this sense, agriculture supports 80% of the population and contributes to 45% of gross domestic product. Bambaige, A., ‘National adaptation strategies to climate change impacts. A case study of Mozambique’, Human Development Report Office Occasional Paper 43, 2007, http://hdr.undp.org.
(24) ‘Economic vulnerability and disaster risk assessment in Malawi and Mozambique measuring economic risks of droughts and floods’, Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery, 2009, http://www.gfdrr.org.
(25) Ibid.
(26) Arnall, A., et al., 2013. Flooding, resettlement, and change in livelihoods: Evidence from rural Mozambique.  Disasters, 37(3), pp. 468−488.
(27) Demetriades, J. and Esplen, E., 2008. The gender dimensions of poverty and climate change adaptation. IDS Bulletin, 39(4), pp. 24-31; Waterhouse, R., ‘Vulnerability in Mozambique: Patterns, trends and responses’, Paper presented at the IESE Conference ‘Poverty Dynamics and Patterns of Accumulation in Mozambique’, Maputo, 22-23 April 2009, http://www.iese.ac.mz.
(28) Demetriades, J. and Esplen, E., 2008. The gender dimensions of poverty and climate change adaptation. IDS Bulletin, 39(4), pp. 24-31.
(29) Berg, T., Dava, F. and Muchanga, J., ‘Post-disaster rehabilitation and seed restoration in flood affected areas of Xai-Xai District, Mozambique’, SD Dimensions, March 2001, http://www.fao.org; ‘The role of social relations in farmer seed systems and reconstruction of agricultural production in a post-disaster situation’, SD Dimensions, January 2004, http://www.fao.org.
(30) Berg, T., Dava, F. and Muchanga, J., ‘Post-disaster rehabilitation and seed restoration in flood affected areas of Xai-Xai District, Mozambique’, SD Dimensions, March 2001, http://www.fao.org.
(31) Ibid.
(32) See Bradshaw for the case of post-Mitch Nicaragua. Bradshaw, S., 2010. “Women, poverty and disasters: exploring the links through Hurricane Mitch in Nicaragua”, in Chant, S. (eds.). The international handbook of gender and poverty. Edward Elgar: Cheltenham.
(33) Demetriades, J. and Esplen, E., 2008. The gender dimensions of poverty and climate change adaptation. IDS Bulletin, 39(4), pp. 24-31.
(34) Tvedten, I., Paulo, M. and Tuominen, M., ‘Gender and poverty in Mozambique’, CMI, October 2010, http://www.cmi.no.
(35) Chant, S., 2007. Gender, generation and poverty: Exploring the "feminisation of poverty" in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Edward Elgar: Cheltenham; Sen, G., 2008. Poverty as a gendered experience: The policy implications. Poverty in Focus, 13, pp. 6-7; Medeiros, M. and Costa, J., ‘What do we mean by “feminization of poverty”?’, International Poverty Centre, July 2008, http://www.ipc-undp.org.
(36) Bradshaw, S., 2010. “Women, poverty and disasters: Exploring the links through Hurricane Mitch in Nicaragua”, in Chant, S. (ed.). The international handbook of gender and poverty. Edward Elgar: Cheltenham.
(37) Chant, S., 2008. The “feminisation of poverty” and the “feminisation” of anti-poverty programmes: Room for revision?. Journal of Development Studies, 44 (2), pp. 165-197.
(38) Tvedten, I., Paulo, M. and Tuominen, M., ‘Gender and poverty in Mozambique’, CMI, October 2010, http://www.cmi.no.