Executive Summary
The impacts of climate change are increasingly evident as people worldwide confront higher frequency and severity of water-related disasters, such as droughts, floods, tropical cyclones and storm surges, and heat-related disasters such as heat waves and wildfires. People are losing their homes and livelihoods in climate-related disasters or are forced to take the decision to leave their homes temporarily or permanently, due to climate-related threats to their physical security, food security or water security. Further, sudden onset climate events can cause health problems such as waterborne diseases1 while slower events such as increasing temperatures and desertification can affect mental health, hunger, and malnutrition of affected populations.
Women are more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and climate-related events. For example, more frequent deaths of women may be related to cultural norms (such as women not learning to swim or women not traveling on their own), as well as coping mechanisms (such as reduced calorie intake). Women also have less access to assets often used to cope with disasters such as land, savings accounts or knowledge of climate resilient cropping and agricultural practices and agency to implement these. As women more frequently work in informal economies, this also decreases access to employment-based insurances and pension which can help mitigate shocks.
Climate change is therefore increasingly viewed as a threat to inclusive development, and research indicates that well-designed financial services (savings, credit, insurance, money transfers and new digital delivery channels) can help low-income populations strengthen their resilience to climate shocks.
Mozambique is among the mostly highly affected countries in the world in exposure to risks resulting from climate variability. In 2021, Mozambique was ranked the fifth most affected country in weather-related loss events by the Global Climate Risk Index. Over the past 30 years, climate shocks have been increasing in terms of frequency and severity. The most common shock is flooding, but other frequent shocks include storms (cyclones, high winds), drought and epidemics. Many households face numerous shocks within a short period of time. Over 5 million people have been affected in terms of loss, injury or death by climate shocks since 2016.
The present study spoke to 295 households in rural and urban areas in eight districts affected by climate shocks in the provinces of Sofala, Zambezia and Cabo Delgado. It found that climate shocks had a greater impact on households than any other type of political, financial, personal or business-related shocks. This was particularly true of women. Cyclones were cited more than 50% of the time as the most important climate shock. Households indicated that the trends in shocks were increasing over the past 10 years.
Climate shocks tend to bring other consequences to affected households including loss of assets and equipment, loss of crops, illness, injury and death. They also lose access to social services (health care, policing) while infrastructure such as roads and water is degraded. This situation tends to create secondary effects such as an increase in crime and gender-based violence (GBV), which make it more difficult for households to rebuild after the shocks. Interviewed households saw a spike in these types of shocks in 2019, following Cyclones Idai and Kenneth. Many, however, have not yet recovered because they have since suffered follow-on shocks such as drought, COVID-19, and more recent storms.
Most of the economic losses came in the form of housing. Many households have not been able to rebuild their houses since 2019. Some make use of the parts of their houses which remain habitable, while others have moved into rental housing. Of all segments, women headed households reported the highest relative monetary loss in terms of housing7 . Loss of business income, business and agricultural assets, and crops were other commonly cited challenges. For most households, the number of hectares under cultivation is trending downwards, for crops traditionally cultivated by both men and women. The one place where households are showing some upward trends (though these have not returned to pre-cyclone levels) is regarding productive assets including agricultural equipment, tools, business premises and vehicles. This increase is likely due to the preference indicated by most study participants to invest first in rebuilding livelihoods and then use income to slowly rebuild their housing and other assets.
The general feeling is that support services from the government (such as health care and emergency support) are insufficient and trending downwards. Women and people with disabilities report relatively lower access to this service. This has increased the cost burden on some households, who need to use private pharmacies to acquire medicines where they are not available in health clinics. There is a (small) reference that religious organizations are becoming more important in some communities.
