New data: Cooling access gaps among women and men in 2022

Rural poor in focus

Case study: Access to agricultural cold chains for women in Mozambique

Access to cooling in rural areas is limited by the availability of basic infrastructure, services and supply chains; rural livelihoods are more vulnerable to climate change, and the effects of climate change are likely not gender neutral. In several high-impact countries — including Angola, Burkina Faso, Chad, the Gambia, Guinea, India, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan and Senegal — rural populations tend to be comprised of more women than men. [4]

In Mozambique, a Critical 9 [5] country for access to sustainable cooling, approximately 53 percent of the total rural poor population of 13.5 million are women (7.2 million). In addition to facing risks related to heat stress, a lack of access to cooling for rural women at risk in Mozambique exacerbates existing social and economic development challenges related to health, equality and access to decent work. 

These inequalities are evident in Mozambique’s agricultural sector. The sector accounts for 70 percent of total employment but only 24 percent of annual gross domestic product (GDP), [6] with relatively slow productivity gains. Women are widely represented in the agricultural workforce, accounting for 80 percent of total female employment in Mozambique, [7] but many are unskilled [8] and generally face significant challenges in accessing opportunities for education.

At the same time, there is evidence that access to sustainable cooling can support growth in the agricultural sector. Mozambique loses about 30 percent of its agricultural production in post-harvest transportation and due to household storage challenges, with a lack of access to cold chains contributing significantly. Meanwhile, two crops for which refrigeration can extend shelf life, cassava and tomatoes, account for 64 percent of the total agricultural GDP, [9] and investments in agricultural cooling are beginning to show business potential. For example, after investing in cold room technology to manage production growth, Ausmoz Farm Holdings, located in the Manica province of Mozambique, eliminated its on-site waste of avocados and litchis for export.  

For women to benefit from access to cooling in Mozambique’s agricultural sector and improve their livelihoods, they must be directly targeted for financing and business development support. Early results of the Agriculture and Natural Resources Landscape Management (SUSTENTA) project, which aims to integrate rural farmers into sustainable agricultural value chains, showed an increase of overall crop production from 14 to 16 million tonnes between 2020 and 2021. But the beneficiaries of a matching grant scheme provided by the project are predominantly men, with female smallholder farmers only accounting for between 13 and 14 percent of beneficiaries. Under the Mais Peixe mechanism, a similar matching grant for the fisheries sector, only 29 percent of recipients were women, and they typically received less funding than men.   

So, while access to sustainable cooling has a potentially large impact for productivity and jobs in Mozambique’s agricultural sector, targeted support is necessary to ensure that women benefit in the same way as men. [10]

Urban poor in focus

Case study: Cooling resources for poor women in Accra, Ghana

In other high-impact countries such as Bangladesh, Namibia and Peru, urban populations are comprised of more women than men. [11] In 80 percent of countries surveyed by UN Women and UN-Habitat, there are disproportionately high numbers of women aged 15 to 49 in urban slums. 

For example, in Ghana there are almost 130 female slum dwellers in the 15 to 49 group for every 100 males, representing over 4.5 million poor urban women at high risk. Similar patterns were observed in Cameroon, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Malawi, Nigeria and Togo. 

In Ghana’s capital city Accra, heat stress is expected to be exacerbated as temperatures rise, with the city predicted to see 31 to 50 days with temperatures above 35°C and 10 to 21 days above 40°C in 2050. [12] For women living in Accra’s poor urban settlements, increased heat stress and a lack of access to cooling have important implications both in the workplace and the home.

Approximately 83 percent of working women living in Accra’s slum communities work in the informal sector, [13] for instance as street vendors, service traders and domestic workers. Ghana is expected to be among the top ten countries in Africa — and the most affected in West Africa — for work hours lost to heat stress under a 1.5°C global warming scenario, with an almost 350 percent increase in hours lost in 2030 compared to 1995. [14] For female slum dwelling workers in Ghana’s informal sector, the impacts of increasing heat stress and traditional gender roles combined with a lack of formal workplace protections point to increasing risks in the workplace, and an urgent need for affordable cooling.

In the home, low-grade housing creates additional risks for women living in Accra’s slum communities. A recent survey of three such communities showed that 46 percent of women live in compound houses, where multiple families share the same facilities, compared to 29 percent of men. The homes in the survey were found to lack electricity connections and adequate ventilation. This implies that during a heatwave, the women in these communities would have less access to cooling and be more vulnerable to extreme heat than men. 

Perception of heat can also vary by gender and maternal status. The same study found that women over the age of 30 in Accra’s slum communities reported higher perceived exposure to heatwaves than men. [15]

Ultimately, more data are needed to shed light on gender-based cooling risks in rapidly growing cities. In Accra, where data show that poor, urban women are overrepresented in informal workplaces, are more likely to live in housing less tolerant to heat, and can have less physiological tolerance for heat, interventions that target compound dwellings and support community cooling resources for mothers and workers would support enhanced gender equity.