Women, Water and Peace: Strategies for climate adaptation and agricultural sustainability in Somalia

Overview

In Somalia’s conflict- and drought-prone regions, women’s local leadership in water and agricultural projects has emerged as a successful model not only for peacebuilding but also community-led climate adaptation and resilience. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork conducted in 2025 in three study sites spread across three Somali federal states, this article examines how local women are transforming water catchments, agricultural markets, and input projects into vehicles for climate resilience, livelihood revival, and peaceful co-existence. Women’s participation in local water committees and agricultural cooperatives are contributing towards reduced conflict over scarce resources, improved food security, equitable access to clean water and agricultural livelihoods, based on this research. The interventions have reduced women’s time burden for fetching water, thus enabling them to engage more meaningfully in local governance, and challenging strongly entrenched gender norms. In a context marked by violence and conflict this case study illustrates that women-led ‘everyday peacebuilding’ through cooperation, sustainable agriculture, and the collective sharing of resources solidifies community trust while reducing climate stress induced tensions. From an intersectional feminist conflict perspective, this paper argues that women-led initiatives simultaneously signify resistance against climate injustice calling for redefinition of peace dividends in fragile states. In the studied cases, Somali women are not passive recipients of aid but central actors in securing water security, food systems, and local peace. However, a feminist political ecology analysis reveals that these gains are unevenly distributed, as women from minority clans and those living in Internally Displacement Persons’ camps did not benefit equally.