A collection of studies from the front lines of the climate crisis reveals that tackling inequality is fundamental to transformative adaptation
By Eleanor Fisher, Jon Hellin, and Mary Ng’endo
It’s a phrase we hear so often that it has almost lost its power: those least responsible for climate change suffer the most from its consequences. But for many social scientists, this isn’t just a distant maxim; it’s the daily reality for the smallholder farmers we work with across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. These farmers, who are crucial to global food systems, are on the front lines of a crisis they did not create. Their vulnerability isn’t just about being in the wrong place at the wrong time; it’s a product of deep-seated social, political, and economic inequalities that have existed for generations.
This is why, after years of research, we’ve come to a stark conclusion: simply introducing new technologies or tweaking existing agricultural practices will not be enough to secure a sustainable future. We need a fundamental shift in our approach, one that places social equity, the principles of fairness and justice, at the very heart of climate action.
This isn’t about making climate adaptation an optional add-on to business as usual; it’s about making it the foundation for business unusual. The scale of the climate crisis demands more than small, incremental adjustments. It requires what we call ‘transformative adaptation’, fundamental changes to the systems that govern our lives, from social norms and values to institutional practices and policies. This is critically necessary if we are to address the root causes of vulnerability and prevent further harm to human wellbeing.
For too long, the theory of transformative adaptation has outpaced its real-world application. We know what needs to happen in principle, but what does it actually look like on the ground? To answer this, the three of us curated a special issue for the journal Current Research in Environmental Sustainability titled “Advancing Transformative Adaptation through Social Equity: Land, Water, and Food Systems in the Global South”. Our goal was to bridge the gap between theory and practice by showcasing tangible, empirical examples of how social equity can drive climate adaptation.
We brought together six field-based research articles that offer powerful lessons from smallholder communities. Each study demonstrates that when you start with equity, you unlock new and more effective pathways to resilience.
The first paper, ‘Impacts of gender-inclusive extension approaches on farmer understanding and willingness to pay for bundled financial services’ by Timu et al. (2024), tackles a well-known barrier in Kenya: women’s limited access to financial services like credit and insurance. The research showed that providing targeted, gender-sensitive information about complex financial products helped both men and women make better-informed decisions to manage climate risks. It’s a clear example of how equitable information sharing can empower communities and begin to level the playing field.
Taking a different methodological route, the article ‘A positive deviance approach to understand gender relations and practices that support transformative adaptation: insights from Kenya dairy households’ by Bullock et al. (2025) looked for what was already working. Instead of focusing on problems, this innovative study identified households that were succeeding against the odds. They found that practices like equitable decision-making between spouses—behavior that deviated from local norms—were key to building resilience. These “positive deviants” show us that powerful solutions for transformative change can often be found within communities themselves, challenging the status quo from the inside out.
Another paper explored how grassroots initiatives can challenge unsustainable policies. In ‘Prosperous futures inspired by prosperous pasts: Fostering imagination of radical food system alternatives in Guatemala’, Rutting et al. (2024) identified what they call ‘disruptive seeds’ of innovation. Working with local groups, they highlighted initiatives like recovering native seeds and building food sovereignty based on ancestral knowledge as powerful ways to create radical alternatives to inequitable agricultural systems. Crucially, indigenous actors co-authored this paper, a vital step towards what we call ‘epistemic justice’, recognizing and valuing different forms of knowledge.
Theories of justice provide a powerful lens for this work. This is demonstrated in the paper ‘A field methodology to advance social equity and transformative adaptation to climate change in smallholder communities’. In this study, Petesch et al. (2024) piloted a methodology in Kenya and the Philippines to put the principle of ‘leave no one behind’ into practice. Our research confirmed that for the smallholders we worked with, fairness and equality in how people treat one another and share resources were fundamental to their own ideas of a just society.
Water governance is another critical area where equity is paramount. In ‘Community-based water tenure in equitable and transformative drought resilience’, van Koppen et al. (2024) showed how community-led water management in Zambia and Kenya can achieve greater equity for marginalized men and women. By starting with the recognition of everyone’s rights and involving communities in the design of water systems from the outset, they found it possible to build more effective and just resilience to drought.
Finally, we cannot ignore that for many communities, climate change unfolds in settings already marked by violence and conflict. The paper by Medina et al. (2025), ‘Adapting to climate change under threats of violence: a comparative institutional analysis of incentives for conflict and collaboration’, addresses this head-on. Through comparative analysis in Guatemala, the Philippines, and Kenya, the authors identified factors that drive either conflict or cooperation. Their work underscores that gender norms and power structures are critical, as they can deepen inequalities and leave certain groups, particularly women, disproportionately vulnerable.
Taken together, these studies reinforce a central message: technology alone is not the answer. If we continue to focus only on technical fixes while ignoring the social and political causes of vulnerability, we risk making things worse—a phenomenon known as ‘maladaptation’, where our interventions unintentionally worsen people’s vulnerability to future climate risks.
The path forward requires a deeper commitment to transdisciplinary research that brings together diverse knowledge systems and learns from people’s lived realities. We need to build our collective capacity to learn and adapt, creating shared visions for a better future. The climate crisis is fundamentally a social crisis, and only by addressing its roots in inequity can we hope to build a future that is not only sustainable but also just and fair for all.
Eleanor Fisher is Head of Research at the Nordic Africa Institute (NAI) in Sweden. Jon Hellin is a Climate Scientist and Mary Ng’endo a Social Scientist at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).
Read the special issue:
Advancing Transformative Adaptation through Social Equity: Land, Water, and Food Systems in the Global South
Edited by Eleanor Fisher, Jon Hellin, and Mary Ng’endo
Current Research in Environmental Sustainability (Special Issue)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/special-issue/106NN2BWST9
