Exploring the effects of a participatory climate services approach on smallholder decision-making in Rwanda using a gender lens

Abstract Effective climate services are crucial in supporting farmers to adapt to climate variability and change. Different factors may hinder certain types of farmers in accessing, using and benefiting from climate services. Participatory Integrated Climate Services for Agriculture (PICSA) is a climate services and agricultural extension approach that has been used in more than 20 countries. PICSA has empowered women and men farmers in their planning and decision making and led them to make beneficial changes. Over 112,000 farmers were trained in Rwanda. Results from a large-scale quantitative survey and qualitative case studies with selected farmers are analyzed by gender, headship and wealth to enable understanding of how different farmers access, use and benefit from the information and tools that make up PICSA. Almost all respondents made changes in their farming and/or other livelihood enterprises as a result of the training. The majority of farmers reported that the changes they had made were beneficial, however, a key finding is that in some cases women heads from the least wealthy categories are less able to benefit. This paper provides insights on how gender, headship and wealth status influence responses to climate information and decision-making tools and in so doing highlights important implications for the design of climate services and similar interventions.