IDS Bulletin

Climate Resilience and Poverty Reduction

2026-07-20T08:06:29+00:00

East and Southern Africa face a disproportionately high burden from climate change, which is posing a growing threat to poverty reduction in these regions. Given the dependence of poor and vulnerable rural populations on agricultural livelihoods, support programmes and policies urgently need to address weather shocks. However, the level of welfare or wellbeing at which these climate shocks can be resisted is often underestimated.

The research topics identified in this issue of the IDS Bulletin raise important questions for policymaking and programme design: which policies, programmes, and investments will most effectively reduce the climate resilience threshold?

The articles in this IDS Bulletin highlight the mechanisms through which climate change drives negative poverty dynamics. They examine the role of adaptation and instruments in mitigating these negative impacts and identify policy pathways for building long‑term resilience to both poverty and climate change. The articles here provide entry points into what action might look like, for individuals, households, communities, nations, and international systems.

The evidence presented in this issue integrates consideration of different types of instruments, such as social protection, vocational training, and livelihood systems support, and considers the extent to which these are fit-for-purpose, and politically feasible, in order to address structural issues. There is also a clear argument that current climate finance is often not poverty focused, requiring a shift towards gender-sensitive, poverty-targeted, locally led programmes.

By consolidating this evidence, this issue of the IDS Bulletin aims to inform national and international policymakers, practitioners, and researchers seeking to design effective, context‑specific strategies that safeguard livelihoods in an era of increasing climate uncertainty.

Introduction: Integrating Climate Resilience and Poverty Reduction

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Climate change poses a growing threat to poverty reduction in East and Southern Africa. Yet the level of welfare or wellbeing at which climate shocks can be resisted, or no longer have an impact on wellbeing status, is often underestimated. This article introduces a special issue of the IDS Bulletin, synthesising multi-country qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods evidence from these two regions. It shows that climate resilience is closely linked to the same capacities that enable sustained escapes from poverty. While households in and near poverty employ diverse forms of coping, limited assets and weak institutional support limit their ability to maintain wellbeing over time. The article accordingly highlights the need for integrated, multisectoral approaches combining social protection, livelihood support, and skills development to strengthen climate resilience alongside poverty reduction.

Zambian Poverty Dynamics and Climate Resilience

2026-07-20T08:21:02+00:00

The past ten years have witnessed a greater intensity of climate-related crises in Zambia. Alongside this, the number of people living in poverty in Zambia continues to grow. This article investigates key drivers of resilience to poverty and to climate change in Zambia, and as part of this, what the key institutional responses are and policy opportunities to strengthen climate resilience alongside resilience to poverty. It relies on mixed-methods data from 2010 to the present in Zambia: the Rural Agricultural Livelihoods Survey panel (2010–2019), the Living Conditions Monitoring Survey (2022), and qualitative data collection across nine provinces in Zambia (2019–2024). Study findings indicate that climate resilience is in great part built on a foundation of escaping poverty and developing capacities to remain out of poverty. However, degrees of climate resilience can be enabled at lower levels of wellbeing through policies that support climate-smart agriculture and economic diversification.

Resilient Livelihoods or Resilient Planet? Bidirectional Pathways Between Poverty Reduction and Climate Adaptation in Rural Zambia

2026-07-20T08:06:33+00:00

In drought-prone Southern Africa, rural livelihoods face multiple shocks and stresses, particularly due to climate change, often resulting in impoverishment. However, household climate adaptations are not always conducive to poverty escapes. This article seeks to explore this discrepancy by examinine livelihood diversification as a means for households to achieve the ‘dual outcomes’ of poverty reduction alongside climate adaptation. The study employs an existing rural qualitative data set in Shangombo District in Western Zambia, consisting of life history interviews from 2019 and 2023. ‘Dual-outcome’ respondents demonstrated absorptive capacity, including through livestock accumulation and food production, alongside adaptive capacity built primarily through formal education and diversified livelihoods and assets. Women respondents’ disparities in risk exposure and structural barriers limited their opportunities to build these capacities. Moreover, while adaptive capacity enabled households to make strategic choices, this component of development resilience manifested in some cases as maladaptation across spatial and temporal scales, jeopardising longer-term climate resilience.

Inclusive Pathways for Climate Resilience: The Role of Vocational Skills Innovation for Women and Youth

2026-07-20T08:06:33+00:00

This article examines how vocational skills-based interventions shape resilience pathways among women and youth in climate-vulnerable regions of Zimbabwe, drawing on qualitative evidence from Matabeleland North and South. Using a phenomenological approach combined with resilience storytelling, the study analyses how participants mobilise skills, networks, and resources to respond to drought and Covid-19-related shocks. The findings show that vocational skills strengthen absorptive, adaptive, and transformative capacities in distinct ways. While skills enable coping and livelihood diversification, their ability to support sustained poverty reduction is uneven and shaped by structural constraints such as access to capital, labour markets, and gender norms. Youth were more likely to leverage skills for labour mobility and diversification, while women’s pathways were more locally anchored and shaped by collective organisation and care responsibilities. The study argues that vocational training contributes to resilience but requires supportive economic and institutional environments to enable inclusive and transformative outcomes.

Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania’s Strategic Partnerships and Smallholder Farmers’ Climate Resilience

2026-07-20T08:06:34+00:00

Efforts to modernise agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa have increasingly relied on collaborative arrangements between public institutions and private actors. Yet evidence on how these agricultural public–private partnerships (PPPs) affect smallholder farmers’ ability to cope with climate risks remains limited. Using the case of Tanzania’s Southern Agricultural Growth
Corridor agricultural strategic partnerships, this article examines the implications of partnership interventions for enhancing smallholders’ absorptive, adaptive, and transformative capacities for climate resilience. Based on in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with partnership actors, the study shows that interventions are centred on the production and marketing nodes of the value chains. The partnerships contributed moderately to farmers’ absorptive capacity, but adaptive gains remained weak due to intermittent seed supply systems, unaffordable input prices, unstable markets, and a lack of irrigation infrastructure and technologies. Moreover, partnerships’ potential to enhance transformative capacity remains questionable, as they often fall short of tackling structural constraints.

Social Protection Programmes and Household Resilience in the Face of Repeated Shocks in Malawi

2026-07-21T07:32:00+00:00

Building household resilience in the face of repeated shocks is crucial to achieving the development goals of low‑income countries. In this study, we examine the role of social protection programmes in enhancing household resilience in Malawi, using four rounds of the integrated household panel survey data. Using a resilience indicator based on the Resilience Index Measurement and Analysis methodology developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization, we show that shocks, such as the high costs of agricultural inputs, floods, and irregular rains, have a negative relationship with resilience. Improvements in education, engagement in self-employment activities, and household savings increase household resilience. However, coupon subsidies and cash transfers have an insignificant relationship with resilience, suggesting that they should be strengthened to improve their effectiveness through better targeting.

Political Economy Insights on Equitable Systems for Climate Resilience and Poverty Reduction in East and Southern Africa

2026-07-20T08:06:35+00:00

Countries in Africa face intensifying climate change impacts and high poverty rates. Meanwhile, climate resilience and poverty reduction system strengthening efforts have often fallen short. This literature review synthesises evidence on the political economy of distributional regimes – the institutionalised arrangements shaping resource allocation – that shapes the uptake, design, and implementation of climate resilience and poverty reduction (specifically social protection) reforms in the region. Three dynamics emerge as central: enduring historical legacies; political agendas from above and below; and narratives of deservingness and social norms. Technocratic reforms have tended not to engage effectively with these dynamics, risking limited traction and amplified inequalities. At the same time, the review identifies approaches that have tried to respond to local political economies, including through aligning interventions with political interests; supporting locally led development; and incorporating a focus on gender and social inclusion.

Glossary: Climate Resilience and Poverty Reduction

2026-07-20T08:06:36+00:00

This is the glossary of IDS Bulletin 57.2 'Climate Resilience and Poverty Reduction'.

Notes on Contributors: Climate Resilience and Poverty Reduction

2026-07-20T08:06:36+00:00

This is the Notes on Contributors for IDS Bulletin 57.2 Climate Resilience and Poverty Reduction.

Vidya Diwakar and Brian Mulenga

2026-07-20T08:06:36+00:00