Bridging rural and urban pathways to climate resilience in Tanzania

PhD researcher Scolastica Mwema investigates climate resilience in Tanzania. Grounded in rural roots and inspired by local agricultural knowledge, she examines how factors like gender, age, social groups, and the flow of people and resources between rural and urban communities influence climate perceptions, impacts and adaptation strategies.

By Elena Adamo

“I was born and raised in rural Tanzania, in a farming community where girls unfortunately didn’t have the same opportunities as boys”, says PhD researcher Scolastica Mwema. Fortunately, her father encouraged her education. He worked for many years as a farm manager and agricultural extension officer in the Tanzania Tea Estates.

As a child, she often looked through her father’s old photo album, filled with images of women hand-picking tea on the estates. Those photos would later shape her understanding of how demanding farming is, and how central women are to sustaining family livelihoods.

Wearing his shoes, but in her heels

“My father always told me, ‘You will wear my shoes.’ At the time, I didn’t understand what he meant. Now I do,” she explains. Wearing his shoes, it turns out, meant not only inheriting his passion for agriculture, but bringing it one step further: dedicating herself to elevating women’s roles in the sector – ensuring they benefit fully from it, and strengthening their capacity for climate resilience.

Understanding structural inequalities in agriculture

At Sokoine University of Agriculture, Scolastica earned a fully funded degree in Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness. But for her, agriculture was not “just a sector”, it was deeply connected to people’s, especially women’s, lives.

“At 23, I joined an international NGO funded by the Canadian government, working directly with rural women,” she explains, and goes on to recount how here she witnessed the structural inequalities that shape women’s access to land, assets and resources. “Women do most of the agricultural work. They interact with land, water and forests. But they benefit the least. Ownership has been shaped by systems that predate them.”

The NGO introduced a livestock programme where women could own goats. “You could see lives changing because of one goat,” she says. “Women finally had something they owned. Something they could use to support their families. It was a very simple but transformative experience.”

Expanding the research lens: climate and rural-urban linkages

Scolastica’s experiences in the field had so far made a couple of things clear. First of all, women need to benefit more from agricultural work, because they are its frontline. Secondly, agriculture cannot be separated from climate and environmental change. To deepen her understanding, she pursued a Master’s degree in Environmental and Natural Resource Management in Malawi and South Africa, exploring how communities adapt to environmental pressures and the role gender plays in shaping responses.

Now, as a PhD researcher for the Danida-supported research project “The role of rural-urban linkages for enhanced climate resilience in rural Tanzania”, Scolastica is trying to  understand how gender, age and rural-urban linkages enhance climate resilience.

Tanzania is changing rapidly: youth migrate, economies shift, and new urban centres emerge. Yet rural, peri-urban and urban life are deeply interconnected. “We cannot separate rural from urban anymore,” she explains. “Resources, people and responsibilities move back and forth. Climate impacts across these boundaries.”

This is why the research project aims to understand opportunities and barriers for current and potential climate change adaptation practices, and to illustrate how these practices can become accessible to different socioeconomic groups, in particular disadvantaged groups.

Scolastica’s specific research focus is to explain how male and female adults and young people experience and respond to climate changes in rural and peri-urban contexts. “Understanding this can help in shaping ad-hoc policies that are better than the classic one-size-fits-all solutions,” she says.

What her findings reveal

Her research specifically focuses therefore on gender and generational perspectives across two agro-climatic zones with distinct histories and governance structures.  “I work directly with communities,” she says, “listening to youth, women and men, understanding how they perceive climate change, how they respond, and what holds them back.”

Her research has revealed key patterns:

1.     Social groups perceive and respond differently
Women experience droughts and temperature changes as more severe due to their domestic and caregiving responsibilities. Men, who often adapt through rural-urban mobility, perceive impacts differently.

2.     Youth are eager for transformation
Young people show readiness to adopt improved seeds and climate services, reflecting their mobility and willingness to invest.

3.     Rural-urban linkages matter
Rural livelihoods depend on urban markets, agro-inputs, knowledge, climate services, and job opportunities. Adaptation strategies cannot be designed in isolation from these interconnections.

4.     Adaptation must be locally grounded
Climate interventions must be tailored to the needs of specific social groups – one-size-fits-all solutions may fail.

5.     Geography shapes access
Remote communities face barriers to services, finance and information, constraining their adaptation options.

Bridging the gaps

While Tanzania has progressive climate and gender policies, implementation gaps remain. “Policies affirm women and youth, but local realities don’t always reflect these commitments,” Scolastica notes. Her work tries to bridge these gaps, connecting community knowledge with policymaking and ensuring adaptation strategies are co-designed with those most affected.

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