In 2019, the World Meteorological Organization conducted a study with the goal of assessing the needs of marginalized groups in developing countries for weather and climate issues. Similar to other studies, they found that one of the groups most disproportionally affected by weather and climate disasters were women.
As part of this study, three separate case studies were conducted in countries from the Asian, Pacific, and African regions of the world. It was found in all three cases that women are more likely to suffer negatively from weather and climate disasters. These studies also investigated the intersectionality of this issue to find if there were any other factors limiting women's ability to take protective action and understand their level of risk in the face of weather disasters such as cyclones. It was found that in countries like Bangladesh and Fiji, older women and disabled women were at an increased risk due to the fact that they may rely on services such as service groups visiting their homes to check on them and provide assistance in making sure they are prepared for an approaching storm. Without these services, which are extremely limited in times of disaster, many of these women suffer because they did not receive necessary and possibly life-saving assistance.
Women were also found to be at a disadvantage for receiving necessary news about weather risks in general due to living in rural locations, and cultural norms that prevent them from accessing meeting spaces where weather warnings and forecast information is discussed among men. In Bangladesh, during the 2007 Cyclone Sidir, many women stated that they were not aware of the approaching storm because they were at home taking care of their household while their husbands were away fishing and they did not have easy access to the public places where storm information was being communicated.
There was also a found need for specific weather information to be conveyed to men, and different specific information conveyed to women in some cases. One such case was found in Kaffrine, Senegal where female farmers reported needing additional information on rainfall deficit forecasts and early seasonal rainfall cessation since they tend to plant their farm plots a month later than the male farmers do. In the Pacific region, it was found that women understand the general effects of climate change, but are hesitant to trust the scientific reports about climate change which implies that there needs to be different methods of communications and education between men and women in this region to make sure nobody is left behind in understanding the science and risks of climate change.
Luckily, there are ways to address these issues, some of which are already in motion today. In Bangladesh, the government has made moves to implement an early warning system and efforts are being made to reach rural communities with storm information. Grassroots groups are working to reach women and ensure they have a reliable method, such as a radio in their home or a mobile phone to receive text alerts, to receive weather warnings and forecast information. An example of one of these groups is Women's Weather Watch in Fiji, who work to create simplified and easy-to-understand weather reports and specifically work to send this information to rural women to inform and empower them in the face of weather disasters. The WMO has also stated that they plan to continue to engage with studies such as the one conducted in 2019, and plan to incorporate their findings into future reports in order to ensure that everyone, regardless of gender, economic status, etc. can receive crucial and life-saving weather information.
Sources: https://wmo.int/media/news/wmo-highlights-gendered-impacts-of-weather-and-climate
https://library.wmo.int/records/item/56897-capstone-project-research-report#.XeoiDq5KtaQ
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