Climate change and house hold vulnerability to poverty in Uganda

Abstract

Economic growth is expected to reduce poverty. However, Uganda has not leveraged its impressive growth outcomes to sustainably address the high poverty levels. This is particularly due to, among other factors, the high levels of vulnerability of household consumption patterns to climate change effects. Numerous studies indicate that Uganda is affected by variations in climate. However, the country ranks 48th in terms of preparedness and 14th in terms of vulnerability. This study investigates the effect of climate change on the vulnerability of Ugandan households to poverty. Using the Global Positioning System data, the study integrates data on changes in climate with six waves of data on household characteristics and vulnerability to poverty from the Uganda National Panel Survey between 2009 and 2019. The study estimates the binary panel using the pooled binary logit regression model. The results indicate that climate variability significantly affects the probability that a household will be vulnerable to poverty. In addition, household asset value, residence in urban or rural areas, household size, education status (highest level attained) of the household head, employment type, and household access to financial credit also influence the probability that households in Uganda will be vulnerable to poverty. The study, therefore, recommends policies that enable households to diversify employment from agriculture to service sectors, increase access to affordable financial credit, as well as support, increased investment in and popularisation of household risk hedging frameworks to reduce exposure to adverse effects of changes in climate and its bearing on household vulnerability to poverty.