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Review

Climate Change Adaptation Strategies and Sustainable Livelihoods of Smallholder Women Farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Scoping Review

by
Abraham Bugre
1,
Amber J. Fletcher
1,* and
Maureen G. Reed
2
1
Department of Sociology and Social Studies, University of Regina, Regina, SK S4S 0A2, Canada
2
School of Environment and Sustainability, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK S7N 5C8, Canada
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2026, 18(12), 6354; https://doi.org/10.3390/su18126354 (registering DOI)
Submission received: 23 April 2026 / Revised: 1 June 2026 / Accepted: 11 June 2026 / Published: 22 June 2026
(This article belongs to the Section Sustainable Urban and Rural Development)
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Abstract

In sub-Saharan Africa, the sustainability of smallholder farming systems is threatened by climate change. Women farmers are often disproportionately affected. These disproportionate impacts are linked to gender-based inequities like limited decision-making power and resource constraints, which limit women’s adaptive capacity. Previous research has examined inequities in agriculture generally, as well as women farmers’ adaptation to climate change. However, relatively few studies have explicitly focused on the experiences of women who are the primary farmers. Intersectional research is also limited. This paper presents the results of a scoping review to identify how climate change affects women smallholder farmers and how they adapt. The review identified 41 studies between 2014 and 2024. The most frequently identified vulnerability factors were access to credit, social and cultural norms, and land issues (e.g., tenure issues). Few studies took an explicitly intersectional approach. The findings suggest the need for support that targets the challenges faced by women smallholders. More intersectional research is needed to examine how gendered impacts are shaped by other forms of inequality and inhibit sustainable livelihood options. The review revealed a pervasive patriarchal assumption in which dual-headed households are often described as “male-headed”. Revising such discourses can support women’s adaptive agency in the face of future climate challenges. These findings have direct implications for the sustainability of smallholder farming systems and rural livelihoods in the region, emphasizing the need for gender-responsive approaches to sustainable development in sub-Saharan Africa.

1. Introduction

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Africa is the continent most impacted by climate change [1]. Successive IPCC reports indicate the worsening impacts of climate change on people’s livelihoods, especially in sub-Saharan Africa [2,3]. Both high- and low-global-emission scenarios indicate increases in extreme temperatures and changes in precipitation, leading to extreme drying and wetting in sub-Saharan Africa [4]. With many smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa relying primarily on rain-fed agriculture [5], the projected effects of climate change on their farms and livelihoods are expected to be devastating [6]. However, due to existing inequalities affecting smallholder farming communities in the region [7], the impacts of climate change will not be felt equally by all groups, with women smallholder farmers particularly impacted [4]. These uneven impacts reduce the likelihood of achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (particularly Goal 5: Gender Equality; Goal 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth; Goal 10: Reduced Inequalities; Goal 13: Climate Action; and Goal 15: Life on Land) and securing sustainable livelihoods for small independent farmers.
Studies have shown that women farmers are often disproportionately affected by climate variability and extreme events, which negatively impact their livelihoods and agricultural production [8]. Women farmers face increased susceptibility to climate extremes due to factors such as limited decision-making power, unequal access to resources, and societal roles that restrict their adaptation options [9]. These challenges are exacerbated by the intersection of gender inequalities, economic constraints, and limited access to knowledge and technology [10]. Climate change-induced events such as droughts, floods, and erratic rainfall patterns affect crop yields and food production, leading to lower incomes and food insecurity among women farmers [9].
Feminist scholars examining the livelihoods of women in rural sub-Saharan Africa have called for an intersectional analysis of power systems that cause inequities in these communities [11]. Intersectionality, as a feminist lens, considers how identity factors like gender, race, class, age, and location interact to create different experiences of power and marginalization for specific individuals and groups [12,13]. Social inequities do not just exist in isolation; instead, they are formed “by multiple overlapping social locations and systems of power” [14] (p. 2) and are linked to deeply rooted structures, like patriarchy and colonialism. Intersecting forms of social inequity create highly differentiated experiences of climate impacts; for example, previous research in Ghana has shown that young rural women are particularly affected [15]. The study found that young women are often required to take on multiple burdensome household tasks, especially those related to food security. These tasks, coupled with their location, age, and gender, further reduce their ability to earn income, limiting their opportunities and decision-making power [15].
Studies have examined the experiences of agricultural women in sub-Saharan Africa, such as their decision-making [16], empowerment [17], and access to resources [18]. Other studies have specifically examined their climate change adaptation activities [19]. Different studies focus on many other aspects of agricultural women’s lives, ranging from their secondary farm roles to non-farm activities [20,21]. However, less literature has explicitly focused on women who are primary farmers or farm owners and their experiences of climate change impacts and adaptation. Indeed, representations of women often fixate on fragility and vulnerability [22]. The role these women play in their communities as farmers in their own right, and how they are adapting to climate change in this role, is not well documented. There is a need to explore the literature more deeply to better understand how women, as primary smallholder farmers, are adapting to climate change.
Given that the literature on women smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa is scattered, we conducted a rapid scoping review to explore the breadth of the literature and deepen our understanding of their experiences and constraints in achieving sustainable livelihoods. The heterogeneous nature of the literature on women smallholder farmers makes it ideal for a scoping review [23,24], as it will provide valuable insights into the topic. Scoping reviews map the available literature to systematically identify concepts and gaps that can be used in evidence synthesis and future research [23,25,26]. This review provides insight into a better understanding of the challenges facing women smallholder farmers and the structural barriers that limit their ability to adopt sustainable, climate-resilient livelihoods.

2. Materials and Methods

This rapid scoping review follows the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines to ensure a systematic protocol for selection and to help avoid bias in selection and reporting. The literature search and study selection were done by a team of two reviewers to ensure rigour [27,28]. However, for the purpose of this paper, only the lead reviewer conducted the data charting and analysis. The themes identified were then reviewed by all authors.
The scoping review explored the existing literature to understand the current research evidence on the impacts of climate change, specifically for women smallholder farmers (smallholder women farm owners) in sub-Saharan Africa, and their adaptation strategies. Three research questions guided the scoping review:
  • What are the impacts of climate change on women smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa?
  • How are women smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa adapting to climate change, and what are their adaptation challenges?
  • Does intersectionality shape how women smallholder farmers adapt to climate change? If so, how?

2.1. Search Strategy

To explore the existing trends and gaps in the literature, the study synthesized both academic and grey literature from 9 databases. The online databases used for academic peer-reviewed articles were African Journals Online, JSTOR, Sage, ScienceDirect, Web of Science, and Wiley. Grey literature was gathered from open-source databases containing reports and publications on climate change and agriculture. These included the FAO online libraries, the United Nations and the World Bank. Google Scholar search engine was also used to search for both academic and grey literature.
The search was completed in 2025 and included sources published between 2014 and 2024 to examine a full decade of publications. The ten-year period was chosen in consideration of the research questions, the pace of development within the field, and the feasibility of the scope. Marshall et al. [29] found that although most rapid reviews are conducted in 5, 7, 10, 15, and 20 years, the changes in the literature between 5 and 20 years were not statistically significant. Although a wider time frame would have included more data from older studies, the 10-year period was selected because it strikes a balance between comprehensiveness and a rapid scoping review approach. This helped us map the most current and impactful evidence while maintaining feasibility and not compromising rigour. Three key terms, with sub-terms, were used in the search, as presented in Table 1, to identify relevant literature.
The three main terms (‘women’, ‘farming’, and ‘climate change’) were tested with a limited preliminary search, which revealed that the terms ‘women’, ‘female’, and ‘gender’ were often used in titles of the literature focused on women. We also identified that the terms ‘agriculture’ and ‘farmer’ were used in the titles of some of the literature. For climate change, we identified its use in different ways, such as ‘climate change’, ‘climate resilience’, and ‘climate-smart’. Hence, we decided to use only ‘climate’ in the search to ensure it returned literature that uses the word ‘climate’ in different ways in their titles. Our general search query was: (women OR gender OR female) AND (agriculture OR farmer) AND (climate).

2.2. Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria

Given the scope of the review, the Population, Context, and Concept (PCC) guideline was used to determine the inclusion and exclusion criteria for selecting both academic and grey literature. The PCC guide is often used because it provides reviewers with a robust framework for conducting scoping reviews [23]. The inclusion and exclusion criteria developed based on the PCC guide are presented in Table 2.
Following the PRISMA guidelines, the flow diagram developed by Page et al. [30] for rapid scoping reviews was adapted for the study, as shown in Figure 1.
A total of 204 documents were retrieved from the search and organized using Zotero (v7.0.30) reference management software. Using Zotero (v7.0.30) allowed the researchers to organize the literature in a shared library accessible to the research team, identify and remove duplicate articles, and facilitate note-sharing for screening titles and abstracts, all in one place. Using the duplicate identification function, 47 duplicates were detected and excluded. Article titles were screened, and 28 articles were excluded. Mainly, this exclusion was due to a geographical focus outside sub-Saharan Africa. The remaining 129 articles were further screened by reading their abstracts, and 87 were excluded for not focusing primarily on women as farmers or their farming activities. Given that the main objective of the review is to understand how smallholder women farmers are affected by and adapting to climate change, it was imperative for the included articles not only to mention women in smallholder farming communities but also to focus on them as primary farmers.
After this step, the full texts of the articles were screened to determine whether they met the PCC guidelines. Although 42 articles were included in this step, the second reviewer identified one additional article; however, both reviewers agreed it should be excluded because its geographic focus was not exclusive to sub-Saharan Africa. This brought the total number of included articles for data charting and analysis to 41.

2.3. Data Charting

The study used an inductive approach to identify the foci of the included articles. To do this, the included articles were imported into QSR NVivo 14 (v14.23.2) qualitative data analysis software, and the auto-coding wizard was used to identify key themes common across the articles. From the result, 11 focus areas were identified (Table 3).
Other information extracted from the included articles was bibliographical details (title, authors, publication year), focus areas, study area, and the methods and design. The charted data were populated using both direct quotes and key summaries from the included articles. The charted data are included as Supplementary Information.

3. Results

3.1. Descriptive Results

The majority of the studies focused on West Africa, with Ghana (n = 12) leading and followed by Nigeria (n = 9). The second-highest sub-region was East Africa, while Central Africa was the least represented. Figure 2 shows the geographical distribution of the studies. Some studies covered more than one country; therefore, the sum is more than 41.
Most articles were written in 2022 (n = 8) and 2024 (n = 8). Although the search spanned from 2014 to 2024, no articles from 2014 or 2017 met the inclusion criteria, as shown in Figure 3.
Most studies employed a mixed-methods approach, followed by qualitative and then quantitative methods, as shown in Figure 4.
Figure 5 presents the frequency of focus areas across the included studies. These study areas were inductively generated from our NVivo 14 (14.23.2) analysis.

3.2. Impacts of Climate Change

Among the included articles, 37 (90.2%) of the 41 discussed the impacts of climate change on smallholder farmers, while the remainder focused on other aspects, such as adaptation. Daudu et al. [31] highlighted that the climate sensitivity of the agricultural sector in Sub-Saharan African countries makes smallholder farmers among the most vulnerable groups to the impacts of climate change. Several studies [32,33,34,35,36] specifically identified the effects of changing rainfall patterns on farmers in the region. Phiri et al. [37] highlight that several dry areas in countries such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and Uganda have experienced more frequent floods and locust invasions, depriving farmers of their livestock. Addaney et al.’s respondents talked about how prolonged dryness “result[s] in stunted crop growth, burning of farmlands, crop-withering and dying, loss of soil moisture resulting in reduction in income levels” [9] (p. 358). Most of the articles noted rising temperatures as becoming more common in their study areas, leading to farm losses for smallholder farmers [9,32,33,34,35,38,39,40,41,42,43].

3.3. Adaptation Strategies of Smallholder Women Farmers

The literature reveals a variety of production-related adaptation practices used by women in the region. Gorettie et al. [44] found that women primarily adapted by combining crop diversification with livestock farming practices and using their cash savings to purchase food for their families. Alhassan et al. [45] highlighted that, compared to men, women adopted more crop-related adaptation strategies, such as early-maturing rice varieties. Hailemariam et al. [41] also found that women farmers were more likely to adopt traditional practices with low risk and low returns, such as water harvesting and crop covering, as means of adaptation. Similarly, Ayanlade et al. [38] noted women’s crop-related adaptation strategies and argued that, because women are primarily responsible for food security and family welfare, they prioritize diverse crops and income sources. Onyimadu, however, argued that choosing to diversify crops puts a burden on women smallholder farmers as they must choose between “stabilising incomes or ensuring the resilience of farm output to climate change shocks” [46] (p. 13).
Contrary to the findings from Alhassan et al. [45] and Apeh et al. [47], who highlighted that women smallholder farmers identified high-yielding, early-maturing, and stress-tolerant varieties as the most effective climate adaptation strategies, studies by Assan et al. [48], Daudu et al. [31], Hailemariam et al. [41], Mangheni et al. [49], Wrigley-Asante et al. [50], and Zimba et al. [51] found that men were more likely to adopt drought-resilient crop varieties.
Lawson et al. [35] conducted 103 semi-structured interviews in Ghana and found that 100% of the women changed planting dates to adapt, 95.3% used mixed farming, 94.3% practiced intercropping, 76.4% planted early-maturing varieties, 62.3% practiced composting, and 42.5% engaged in off-farm income-generating activities. Obisesan and Chitakira [43] also pointed out how women smallholder farmers adapt to climate change by practicing intercropping. In a survey of 68 female heads of households by Assan et al. [48], 45% had resorted to borrowing money from relatives or close friends; 29% sold wild vegetables and fruits; 19% sold firewood and/or processed shea nuts; and 18% sold livestock as coping measures. Similarly, Wrigley et al. highlighted that women smallholder farmers sometimes engaged in “petty trading in agricultural and consumable goods, a key off-farm strategy as this fit more into their traditional gender role” to cope with climate change [50] (p. 137). Women were more likely to diversify their source of livelihood by taking up off-farm jobs as a coping mechanism, while men were more likely to use migration from affected communities as their coping mechanism [11,36]. This is supported by Lawson et al. [35], who found that migration was among the least-adopted adaptation strategies used by women farmers (2.8%) in their study.
Limited access to financial resources constrains women smallholders’ ability to purchase inputs such as herbicides and synthetic fertilizers, leading them to rely more on indigenous farming techniques to adapt to climate variability [38,52]. However, women may use community-based social supports to help address financial limitations: a study by Perez et al. [53] found that women smallholder farmers engaged in community-based, mutual insurance and risk-sharing networks as a coping strategy. Notably, the study by Gorettie et al. [44] found that men were more likely to use their spouses’ assets to address crop losses, potentially increasing women’s risk by reducing their resources. Most of the articles (56.1%) discussed adaptation strategies and challenges of women smallholder farmers in comparison to their men counterparts, with sociocultural norms highlighted by most of the articles as a substantial differentiator [32,33,34,37,38,41,47,48,54,55]. Phiri et al. emphasized this in their study, noting that the “differentiated power relations between men and women and unequal access to and control over assets mean that men and women do not have the same adaptive capacity” [37] (p. 14).
Out of the 41 articles, 22 articles (53.7%) emphasized that smallholder women farmers were more vulnerable to climate change compared to their men counterparts. As presented in Figure 6, most studies identified specific situations that cause this differential vulnerability in women.
Sixteen studies highlighted the lack of access to credit as a leading reason why smallholder women farmers are more vulnerable to climate change than men [22,32,33,34,37,38,39,41,47,52,53,54,55,56,57,58]. Twelve studies mentioned the lack of access to arable land and the insecure land tenure systems to which women smallholder farmers are often subjected [9,22,32,33,34,39,41,42,45,52,53,58,59]. Eleven studies mentioned the lack of access to information and training [22,32,34,37,39,41,47,52,57,58,60]. The limited education of the smallholder women farmers was also cited by eight studies [22,32,33,34,41,53,57,58].
The propensity of women smallholder farmers to use conventional farming methods such as hand hoeing and ploughing was also noted by some studies (n = 4) as a reason they are more vulnerable than men [36,39,55,57]. Additionally, some studies argued that women smallholder farmers have less access to climate-resilient technologies, which puts them at a disadvantage to men, making them more vulnerable [31,37,39,54,57]. The lack of access to agricultural inputs and extension services was also underlined in other studies as a significant cause [39,53,55]. Several studies attributed this disparity to cultural norms that suppress the voices of women smallholder farmers and to the lack of decision-making power among women farmers within smallholder farming communities, which increases their vulnerability [22,34,37,38,41,45,47,52,58,61,62].

3.4. Intersectional Issues for Women Smallholder Farmers

Intersectionality is a vital concept for understanding why different groups respond differently to the impacts of climate change despite equal exposure [63,64]. Although all the articles identified the unique experiences of women smallholder farmers, with the majority finding women to be more vulnerable to climate impacts, only seven explicitly mentioned the concept of intersectionality in their studies [11,33,41,52,53,62,65]. For example, Perelli et al. argued that an intersectional lens is needed to identify systemic barriers and address “entrenched norms and attitudes” in smallholder farming communities [52] (p. 12). Most of the articles did not directly refer to intersectionality. However, the researchers applied an intersectional analytical framework during data charting and synthesis to identify findings on how gender intersects with other factors to shape inequality across these studies. Using this approach reveals that, in addition to the seven articles that explicitly apply or mention the framework, numerous interplays between gender and other factors affecting smallholder women farmers exist. Figure 7 presents the main intersections identified in the studies.
The interplay between gender and poverty was particularly salient, as studies found that women smallholder farmers are disproportionately poor and lack access to credit facilities to help them adapt, making them more susceptible to the impacts of climate change [9,22,32,33,34,37,38,40,41,43,45,46,47,50,51,52,53,54,57,58,61,62,66,67]. For example, Addaney et al. emphasized that the “low-income status of these smallholder women farmers also affects investment in their farming activities” [9] (p. 359).
Gender and education were another critical interplay in the ability of women smallholder farmers to adapt to climate change in sub-Saharan Africa [9,33,35,37,38,39,40,43,45,51,58,60,61,62,66,68]. Owusu and Yiridomoh opined that women smallholder farmers who were educated were able to “appreciate and decipher early warning systems, which increases their likelihood of choosing targeted adaptation strategies that respond appropriately to climate extremes” [66] (p. 3). However, most of these studies noted that smallholder women farmers were predominantly illiterate, with Anugwa et al. [54] emphasizing that the lack of education exacerbates women’s vulnerability to climate change.
Gender and marital status were also highlighted in many of these studies, which stress that these factors could significantly impact a woman farmer’s ability to adapt to climate extremes [8,11,22,33,34,35,39,41,42,48,50,54,58,62,67,69]. Gorettie et al. [44] found that widowed or divorced smallholder women were sometimes prevented from accessing more climate-resilient lands because they lacked a husband to secure land rights on their behalf. They also found that most single women farmers purchased land for independence and security, as they had limited rights to inherit land [44].
Some studies linked women farmers’ gender to their caregiving and domestic responsibilities. Domestic duties such as cooking and fetching water, alongside reproductive roles, impose additional burdens on women farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, hindering their adaptation to climate change [11,32,38,40,50,54,55,61,65,66,68]. Umar [55] emphasized the increased workload due to combined agricultural and reproductive roles, limiting women’s ability to adapt to climate hazards. Their caregiving role for children and the elderly was also found to significantly affect their adaptive capacity [33,38,49,57,67,68].

4. Discussion

The reviewed literature identified extreme temperatures and changes in precipitation as the two main impacts of climate change that directly affected the lives of smallholder women farmers [9,35,38,42]. Reduced yields, reduced irrigation and water shortages, loss of indigenous varieties, decreasing arable lands, and increased pest and disease attacks are notable impacts of extreme weather events on food production among these farmers [8,36,46,61]. Although smallholder women farmers in Sub-Saharan African countries play a vital role in ensuring household food security in their communities [38,48], the review found that women are more vulnerable to climate impacts due to their farm practices [31,39,53,56]. Daudu et al. [31] attribute this to their heavy reliance on conventional agricultural practices rather than technology-informed and mechanized practices that would boost their adaptive capacity. For example, smallholder women farmers often hand-weed their farms, whereas other methods, such as applying chemicals or using machinery to control weeds, significantly increase labour requirements and reduce yields [52]. However, this heavy reliance on conventional practices by smallholder women farmers has been attributed to their limited access to financial resources and credit [42,52,55,66].
These findings underscore the need to provide more effective support to women smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly as the climate continues to change with increasing dry spells and declining rainfall. Anugwa et al. [54] argued that improved access to resources for women smallholders would help them adapt to climate change, thereby supporting agricultural livelihoods and food security in the region. This shows that enhancing women’s adaptive capacity is not only a matter of gender equity but also an essential component of sustainability, as the long-term productivity and resilience of smallholder farming systems in the region depend on equitable access to resources, technology, and decision-making. By demonstrating how social inequities inhibit sustainable agricultural livelihoods, the results suggest the interconnectedness of several Sustainable Development Goals (e.g., Goals 5, 8, 10, 13, and 15). Identifying gender differences in climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies specific to the communities of interest and addressing them appropriately is crucial to reducing the sensitivity of women smallholder farmers [31]. The review points out the lack of access to information, credit, and agricultural extension services as critical factors influencing women farmers’ coping and adaptation measures in response to extreme climate events [33,39,66]. Unsecured tenure affects the ability of women smallholder farmers to plan long-term and access credit facilities to sustain productivity on their farms [42]. Without adequate support to implement long-term adaptation, women may rely on shorter-term, limited coping strategies [70].
The review thus demonstrates the urgent need for gender-responsive policies and approaches in sub-Saharan Africa [65] by engaging women in policy formulation, since existing policies and practices often fail at engaging them [36]. This could help address critical issues such as land tenure challenges and provide smallholder women farmers with more secure agreements that ensure long-term farming opportunities, sustainable livelihoods, and adaptation. Such policy interventions can be directly relevant to the broader goals of sustainable development, particularly goals 5, 8, 10, 13, and 15, all of which depend on meaningfully including women in agricultural decision-making and sustainable land management.
In this review, we used an intersectional lens to identify which forms of inequity or difference interact with gender to cause women smallholders’ experiences of climate impacts and adaptation. Although intersectionality is a useful concept for understanding how power relations shape people’s exposure to climate hazards [71], especially in sub-Saharan Africa [72], only 7 of the 41 reviewed articles explicitly mentioned or used it in their analyses. Tadesse et al. [66] and Umar [55] applied a gender lens to analyze climate adaptation strategies, while Mangheni et al. [49] used equitable system productivity and women’s empowerment as dual lenses in their research. However, using an intersectional framework during data charting and synthesis revealed how gender and other factors interacted to shape the experiences of women farmers, even in the studies that did not explicitly use intersectionality.
Drawing on the findings, we see intersectionality affecting women smallholder farmers’ adaptation to climate change in at least three overlapping ways. First, intersecting inequalities generate compounding resource constraints: women who are poor, less formally educated, and lack secure land tenure face multiple barriers to accessing credit, inputs, and climate-resilient technologies, constraining the adaptation options available to them. Second, the combination of social location and gender creates varied social expectations and labour burdens. Women’s workloads increase, and the time available to adopt new adaptation strategies diminishes due to caregiving, reproductive work, and domestic responsibilities, coupled with cultural norms that vary by marital status and age. Third, intersectionality explains unequal access to information, extension services, and decision-making spaces, as women’s access to climate information, ability to attend training, and influence over community or household decisions depend on how gender interacts with education, marital status, and position within the household. Recognizing these intersections is important for developing adaptation interventions that respond to the complex realities of women smallholder farmers rather than treating gender as a single undifferentiated category.
The vulnerability lens, despite being critiqued by many postcolonial feminist scholars [73,74,75], was overwhelmingly the most used (17 studies) among the articles. Studies using the vulnerability lens tended to emphasize the weaknesses of women smallholder farmers, paying less attention to their agential responses. As such, the vulnerability lens risks portraying women as uniform victims of climate change [76]. The comparison between the vulnerability of women and men farmers dominated the discussions in the review. However, Arora-Jonsson [76] noted the importance of contextualized analysis that avoids oversimplified portrayals of women as victims. Similarly, Djoudi et al. argued that there is a need to move away from the ‘Vulnerability Olympics,’ where the focus is mainly on proving who is more vulnerable, and to instead promote transformational change [77] (p. S254).
Despite myriad challenges, women smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa are employing various adaptation strategies to cope with the impacts of climate change. They are using strategies such as changing planting dates, mixed cropping, and creating fire belts to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change on their farms [9,35,43,45]. This review also highlights how women farmers in sub-Saharan Africa are diversifying their income sources and livelihood activities to reduce their dependence on agriculture alone. Compared with men, many smallholder women farmers engage in off-farm activities, such as small businesses or handicrafts, to supplement their income and reduce vulnerability to climate-related risks [36,37,42].
A consistent theme across the studies was the use of the concept of “household heads”. This was mentioned by most of the articles (n = 27) and covered all the sub-Saharan African countries (n = 20) identified in the study. In most uses of these terms, “male-headed household” refers to households that include both adult men and women, whereas “female-headed” refers to households with only an adult woman and no adult man. Most of the articles found significant differences in vulnerability and adaptive capacity between “female-headed” and “male-headed” households. For example, studies in Ghana, especially in the northern part, strongly suggest that female-headed households are more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and variability, as they face greater challenges in livelihood strategies, socio-demographic profiles, social networks, and access to water and food [48,50,61,66,69].
The notion of household heads was used to highlight the inequalities that women smallholder farmers face and, therefore, to make inequity visible. However, despite its analytical utility, the discourse of “household heads” by researchers may subtly reinforce patriarchal notions of men as de facto household heads. For example, Nchu et al. found that the use of patriarchal notions that proclaim men as the “natural head of the household” has become a tool to discriminate against women [42] (p. 9). While referring to household heads in research may align with patriarchal gender orders on the ground, when used uncritically, the language may also naturalize a fundamental power structure in smallholder farming communities in sub-Saharan Africa. We suggest that researchers adopt more neutral terminology, such as ‘dual-headed households’ or ‘co-headed households,’ and, alternatively, ‘single-headed households’ or ‘sole-headed households’ to describe household composition without presuming who exercises authority within it. We acknowledge that gendered household heads can be a category that community members themselves may use to describe household organization, rather than a self-imposed category by researchers. In such cases, we suggest that researchers make clear the distinction between local participants’ use of the term and the analytical categories employed in the study, and that they question, rather than validate, the gendered assumptions inherent in local usage to avoid reproducing patriarchal norms in scholarly writing. Future studies should engage critically with the use of patriarchal language while seeking alternatives.
Although the review presents several important insights, the results are subject to some limitations. The study’s inclusion and exclusion criteria, based on PCC guidelines and research objectives, determined the final selection of articles. As such, we selected studies that explicitly referred to women farmers and examined the impacts of climate change on their farming-related activities. Furthermore, the review focused only on studies in sub-Saharan African countries, therefore limiting the scope of the results to the region. Lastly, the search was limited to studies published between 2014 and 2024 to understand the literature landscape in the past decade, at the time of the review’s commencement. Another limitation is the restriction of the search strategy to English-language publications, due to the researchers’ English proficiency, even though the region includes Francophone and Lusophone countries. Relevant data on gender and climate adaptation in these studies could offer additional insights or country cases not covered in this review, and as such, a multilingual search strategy would be beneficial for future reviews. Also, although it is methodologically appropriate for a rapid scoping review to generate focus areas inductively, following this approach in our design may have reduced the importance of other topics identified in the literature.

5. Conclusions and Future Directions

This scoping review used the PRISMA method to explore the literature on smallholder women farmers in sub-Saharan Africa to understand climate change impacts and adaptations, and to identify existing intersections that shape their experience.
From the review, we found that most of the literature on smallholder women farmers in sub-Saharan Africa emphasizes the concept of vulnerability. The findings also highlighted factors such as the lack of access to financial resources, unfavourable land tenure, and insufficient information, technology, education, training, and capacity-building as key contributors to the increased vulnerability of smallholder women farmers to the impacts of climate change. Inequitable sociocultural norms and existing power structures were also highlighted to exacerbate climate impacts on women smallholder farmers in the region.
Stemming from the vulnerability lens, many studies focused on comparing vulnerability between women and men, with very few concentrating primarily on the experiences of women as farmers in their own right. As such, few studies focused on the agential responses of women smallholder farmers to their unique experiences and challenges in adapting to the effects of climate change in the region. While several studies have highlighted different ways in which gender and structural inequalities intersect to shape how smallholder women farmers adapt to climate change, very few have used an intersectionality lens to analyze these interactions.
The reviewed studies showed that some policies do not adequately engage women, and as such, many recommend gender mainstreaming as a policy solution to help these smallholder women farmers better adapt to climate change in the region. The need to strengthen women’s access to arable land and equitable land tenure arrangements was highlighted as a key focus area for gender mainstreaming. Additionally, the meaningful engagement of women smallholders at all stages of policy formulation is also recommended. These measures are critical to developing more sustainable and resilient agricultural systems that can withstand the impacts of climate change while supporting the livelihoods and well-being of women smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.
The results of this rapid scoping review contribute to a deeper understanding of the diversity of experiences among smallholder women farmers in sub-Saharan Africa by providing an overview of how climate change affects them and critical factors shaping their experiences and adaptation strategies. It further highlights the importance of gender equity for the sustainability of agricultural systems and rural livelihoods, and for achieving a broad suite of sustainable development goals in the region.

Supplementary Materials

The following supporting information can be downloaded at: https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/su18126354/s1, Table S1: A full list of the papers included and their descriptive characteristics.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, A.B., A.J.F. and M.G.R.; investigation, A.B.; methodology, A.B. and A.J.F.; writing—original draft preparation, A.B.; writing—review and editing, A.J.F. and M.G.R.; funding acquisition: A.J.F.; supervision: A.J.F. and M.G.R. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This work was supported by the Queen Elizabeth II Advanced Scholar Program.

Institutional Review Board Statement

This research did not involve human participants and therefore did not require IRB review.

Data Availability Statement

No new data were created in this study. Data sharing is not applicable to this article.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the research assistance of Emily Janisch.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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Figure 1. A flow diagram showing the steps used in the exclusion and inclusion.
Figure 1. A flow diagram showing the steps used in the exclusion and inclusion.
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Figure 2. Geographical distribution of the included studies.
Figure 2. Geographical distribution of the included studies.
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Figure 3. Number of studies by year of publication.
Figure 3. Number of studies by year of publication.
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Figure 4. Research design used by the included studies.
Figure 4. Research design used by the included studies.
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Figure 5. The focus areas of the included studies.
Figure 5. The focus areas of the included studies.
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Figure 6. Vulnerability factors highlighted by the studies.
Figure 6. Vulnerability factors highlighted by the studies.
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Figure 7. Main intersections identified in the studies.
Figure 7. Main intersections identified in the studies.
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Table 1. Search terms for the scoping review.
Table 1. Search terms for the scoping review.
Key TermSub-Terms
Womenwomen OR female OR gender
Farmingagriculture OR farmer
Climate Changeclimate
Table 2. Inclusion and exclusion criteria for the scoping review.
Table 2. Inclusion and exclusion criteria for the scoping review.
ScopeInclusion CriteriaExclusion Criteria
PopulationFocused on smallholder women/female farmers.Focused on women but not as farmers.
ConceptFocused on the impact of climate change on smallholder women farmers or the impact of climate change on gender roles in farming communities.Focused on non-climate-related impacts on women.
ContextFocused on countries within sub-Saharan Africa. This criterion was established due to the distinct differences in geopolitical, cultural, and climatic conditions between Saharan Africa and sub-Saharan Africa.Focused on countries outside Africa.
Table 3. Focus areas of the included articles.
Table 3. Focus areas of the included articles.
Focus AreasSub-Areas
Climate AdaptationMeasures, planning, strategies
Farming PracticesCultural, management, Indigenous
Crop productionYield, pre-/post-harvest, seasons
PolicyAdvocacy, interventions, implementation
Land ownershipLand access, rights, tenure systems
Resource managementNatural, water, forest
Land useDegradation, farming systems, ownership
TechnologyClimate-smart tech
CommunityCommunity engagement
Gender rolesInequality, intersection, perspectives
HouseholdsMale-headed households, female-headed households
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Bugre, A.; Fletcher, A.J.; Reed, M.G. Climate Change Adaptation Strategies and Sustainable Livelihoods of Smallholder Women Farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Scoping Review. Sustainability 2026, 18, 6354. https://doi.org/10.3390/su18126354

AMA Style

Bugre A, Fletcher AJ, Reed MG. Climate Change Adaptation Strategies and Sustainable Livelihoods of Smallholder Women Farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Scoping Review. Sustainability. 2026; 18(12):6354. https://doi.org/10.3390/su18126354

Chicago/Turabian Style

Bugre, Abraham, Amber J. Fletcher, and Maureen G. Reed. 2026. "Climate Change Adaptation Strategies and Sustainable Livelihoods of Smallholder Women Farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Scoping Review" Sustainability 18, no. 12: 6354. https://doi.org/10.3390/su18126354

APA Style

Bugre, A., Fletcher, A. J., & Reed, M. G. (2026). Climate Change Adaptation Strategies and Sustainable Livelihoods of Smallholder Women Farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Scoping Review. Sustainability, 18(12), 6354. https://doi.org/10.3390/su18126354

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