Climatepreneurship: Adaptation Strategy for Climate Change Impacts on Rural Women Entrepreneurship Development in Nigeria

Abstract

Adequate and proper adaptation strategies to climate change depend largely on activities in the rural sector, which drives national economy through exploitation of natural resources. Consequently, actions in rural areas are essential to successful climate change adaptation. Rural communities are highly dependent upon natural resources that are affected by climate change, thus affecting their food security, livelihoods, health, and physical infrastructure. Women and their livelihood practices are thereby affected negatively, leading to increased poverty level and low income, because they find it difficult to respond adequately to climate change effects. This study examines the past and existing interventions on climate change adaptation strategies in two rural communities in Oyo State, introduces climatepreneurship strategy, and assesses its effectiveness. This is an explorative study, employing qualitative approach to gather information through in-depth interview (IDIs) from 50 farmers, before and after the interventions. Data collected were analyzed using Atlas ti. This is a powerful workbench for qualitative data analysis using coding and annotating activities to generate different thematic issues for discussions and interpretations with networks. Study revealed that communities had previously experienced some interventions. Such had no impact on livelihood practices because steps to successful intervention were not followed. Socio-cultural practices hinder women development. The newly introduced climatepreneurship strategy improved livelihood practices. Study outcomes will expectedly be integrated into policy framework for sustainable rural women entrepreneurship development and also replicated in other rural areas in Nigeria.