Women especially in rural Ghana have traditionally been involved in gathering and producing food, collecting water and sourcing fuel for heating and cooking.

Unfortunately, climate change is making the performance of these tasks difficult.

One of the solutions is predicting weather patterns mainly through radio weather forecasts.

However, more women have been found not to have access to communication gadgets at home.

This is part of findings by the Environmental Science Department of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.

The study, conducted in the Upper East region, sought to assess mainstreaming information services for resilient agricultural systems in Ghana.

Evidence suggests that women are disproportionately impacted by climate change.

The researchers also tried to find out how gender affect access to climate information.

The same research has established 74 percent of farmers depend on radio for climate information.

The scientists found that more than 40 percent of household female farmers had little access to communication gadgets.

“This is linked to ownership of communication gadgets including radio, television. In most of our villages, sometimes, it’s the males who buy the radio. Even in the case where women buy the radio, it’s the males who control these gadgets.

“Sometimes, household chores and other social commitments don’t allow women to listen to these climate programmes that come on radio and TV,” said the lead scientist, Prof. Philip Antwi-Agyei.

He advocated for gender responsive initiatives to help address these problems.

“We need to promote women participation in climate mitigation and adaptation,” he recommended.