Event summary

Abstract:

Bolivia is currently experiencing a period of unprecedented opportunities for positive social change. However, these opportunities could be compromised in a context of climate change that has worsened and intensified in recent years. Adaptation initiatives at the national, regional and even local levels, as well as the growing number of studies aimed at assessing the effects of climate change at different scales, suggest that Bolivia has taken some steps in the process of understanding and responding to the effects of climate change. However, this does not seem to be enough, as the country still needs to develop and implement policies that adopt more comprehensive approaches to help close the gender gaps that persist and are exacerbated by climate change and climate-related disasters. This thesis sheds light on this issue and provides an analysis of the vulnerability of women and men to different climatic phenomena. Throughout this thesis, we present three chapters that use computable general equilibrium models linked to microsimulations to assess the socio-economic impacts of climate change and climate-related disasters.

In the first chapter, we present a static CGE model to assess the impacts of climate change related to long-term aspects. Specifically, we study scenarios related to declining agricultural production yields, rising international prices and damage to agricultural capital in the context of climate change. These simulations reveal that the negative impacts initially observed in the agricultural sectors are spread to the rest of the sectors, affecting the whole economy. Employment is reduced and domestic workload increases, especially for women. In addition, poverty increases, with rural women being the most affected.In the second chapter, we focus on climate-related disasters and present an ex-post analysis of the disaster events produced between 2013-2014 on women’s food security and food poverty. The simulation reveals negative impacts on the Bolivian economy, particularly on agriculture in the highlands and valleys. Food availability is reduced, food prices increase and this translates into increased food insecurity and food poverty, with female-headed households being the most affected. The third chapter is an extension of the previous article. A dynamic model is used to analyse the ex-post impact of climate disasters, as well as the analysis of reconstruction policies. The results show that damage caused by disasters has negative effects on the economy, while investments in reconstruction have positive effects. However, there are no clear improvements in reducing the gender gaps that remain even after reconstruction. These results reveal the need to integrate a gender perspective into climate disaster analysis and prevention policies that go beyond reconstruction.

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