Climate adaptation, perceived resilience, and food security: Comparative evidence from Kenya and Zambia

This study uses comparable data collected in a pastoralist setting in Kenya and a rain-fed crop production context in Zambia to examine the relationship between climate-adaptive practices, food security, and households’ perceived resilience against climatic shocks. We sort climate-adaptive practices based on their relative factor intensities or diversification decisions, which allows us to draw comparisons regarding these relationships across diverse production systems. Using the doubly robust inverse probability weighted regression adjustment (IPWRA) approach to account for potential selection issues, we find that capital-intensive adaptive strategies are consistently and positively associated with resilience, food security, and income in both contexts. Labour-intensive and diversification strategies have generally positive but heterogeneous impacts across the two production systems, likely governed by contextual differences. Results also highlight the complementarity of adaptive practices in improving household welfare in both contexts. The findings suggest that alleviating the barriers to adoption of climate-adaptive practices and promoting adaptation in several dimensions of rural livelihoods simultaneously can enhance resilience to climate shocks and reduce poverty.