Climate Shocks and Gender Equality in Post-Conflict Societies : Drought, Child Marriage and the Fragility of Post-Conflict Gender Progress

Sammanfattning

Research linking the dynamics between climate change, conflict and gender equality at the same time remains limited. Researchers have mainly investigated either the dynamics between climate change and conflict, or between gender and conflict. This has shown that the processes seem to be opposing. Nevertheless, since research on these three areas combined remains limited and unsettled, it raises the question of how a climate-related event may impact the gender equality development in a post-conflict society. The theory demonstrates that armed conflict may enable advances in women’s roles and rights, while climate-related events often exacerbate societal vulnerability and disproportionately burden women. Drawing on prior research and a merger of these, this thesis hypothesizes that a slow-onset event is expected to undermine gender equality progress in a post-conflict society, despite having introduced the implementation of a peace agreement with gender provisions as well as further steps toward gender equality. This claim is examined through a qualitative structured focused comparison, supported by quantitative data on child marriage and drought in selected post-conflict African cases. The findings do not provide conclusive support for the hypothesis.