Gender Assessment and Action Plan “Strengthening Climate Resilience for Subsistence Farmers and Agricultural Plantation Communities Residing in the Vulnerable River Basins, Watershed Areas and Downstream of the Knuckles Mountain Range Catchment of Sri Lanka”

The report assesses gender-based vulnerabilities and inequalities in Sri Lanka's agricultural and forestry sectors to inform a climate resilience project in the Knuckles Mountain Range. It identifies that while women are central to home gardens, nursery production, and forest monitoring, they face systemic barriers including limited land rights, lower wages in plantations, and restricted access to technical extension services. The document outlines a gender-sensitive project design that integrates women into decision-making for irrigation and forestry, promotes female-led SMEs, and targets female-headed households for land allocation to improve food security and economic resilience.

• Women in rural Sri Lanka are more vulnerable to climate change than men due to their responsibilities for household management, dependence on household agriculture, and limited access to resources and social safety nets.
• Despite high educational attainment—with women making up 62.2% of university entrants—they remain underrepresented in politics, with female representation in Parliament never exceeding 6%.
• Gender discrimination in land inheritance persists due to patriarchal cultural practices, often favoring the youngest male heir, which increases the vulnerability of widows.
• In the agricultural sector, women's roles vary by system: they have greater influence over home gardens and nursery production, but are often excluded from high-level decision-making in irrigated rice and livestock sectors.
• Female plantation workers, primarily Tamils, face severe economic hardship characterized by lower wages, longer hours, and limited access to basic infrastructure.
• Women play a critical but often invisible role in forest protection and monitoring, frequently reporting observations to male relatives rather than directly to officials.
• Women-led SMEs account for only about 10% of the SME economy in Sri Lanka, with most women entrepreneurs operating in micro-enterprises focused on textiles and food processing.
• Disaster impacts on women include a significant increase in household workload, loss of personal savings, and deterioration of health, with women reporting higher rates of loss of appetite (over 36%) compared to men (less than 30%) after disasters.
• There is a significant gap in access to agricultural technology and extension services, as the current delivery systems are not gender-sensitive and often fail to account for women's time constraints and cultural restrictions.

APA

Green Climate Fund (2020). Gender Assessment and Action Plan “Strengthening Climate Resilience for Subsistence Farmers and Agricultural Plantation Communities Residing in the Vulnerable River Basins, Watershed Areas and Downstream of the Knuckles Mountain Range Catchment of Sri Lanka”. https://www.greenclimate.fund/sites/default/files/document/fp124-ga.pdf

Chicago

Green Climate Fund. Gender Assessment and Action Plan “Strengthening Climate Resilience for Subsistence Farmers and Agricultural Plantation Communities Residing in the Vulnerable River Basins, Watershed Areas and Downstream of the Knuckles Mountain Range Catchment of Sri Lanka”. 2020. https://www.greenclimate.fund/sites/default/files/document/fp124-ga.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Green Climate Fund |title=Gender Assessment and Action Plan “Strengthening Climate Resilience for Subsistence Farmers and Agricultural Plantation Communities Residing in the Vulnerable River Basins, Watershed Areas and Downstream of the Knuckles Mountain Range Catchment of Sri Lanka” |date=18 February 2020 |url=https://www.greenclimate.fund/sites/default/files/document/fp124-ga.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{greenclimatefund2020gender, author = {{Green Climate Fund}}, title = {{Gender Assessment and Action Plan “Strengthening Climate Resilience for Subsistence Farmers and Agricultural Plantation Communities Residing in the Vulnerable River Basins, Watershed Areas and Downstream of the Knuckles Mountain Range Catchment of Sri Lanka”}}, institution = {Green Climate Fund}, year = {2020}, month = feb, url = {https://www.greenclimate.fund/sites/default/files/document/fp124-ga.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }