When people are displaced, the structures of everyday life are disrupted. Existing gender roles and responsibilities often both become more intense and shape how individuals respond to their new circumstances.

Amid climate change, one domain in which these shifts manifest is in securing and preparing food. Often, displacement crises are accompanied by strained food systems; in many cases, people from agricultural communities move to areas where resources are already scarce and where infrastructure is limited, adding pressure to food, land, and water. In these situations, women often assume new roles as providers and decisionmakers, while men lose their status as breadwinners. Furthermore, many people may be forced to flee without their spouses, often making women both the primary caregivers to children and responsible for household nutritional needs. These gendered shifts can lead to opportunities—as women drive resilience and develop innovative practices for distributing and cultivating food under constrained conditions—and also challenges, such as increased workloads and exposure to gender-based violence and other risks. Risk of gender-based violence is mainly linked to changing household dynamics, where men try to assert their authority through violence as women take on a greater role of getting food and are therefore in more vulnerable situations.  

Events in Mozambique and Zimbabwe illustrate these dynamics. The countries are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and in recent years have seen hundreds of thousands of people displaced internally and, to a lesser extent, across borders. Mozambique faces a double blow, as extreme climate events have occurred alongside a violent conflict involving non-state armed groups. In these contexts, displacement-related food challenges have often reshaped or magnified traditional gender roles, at times giving women new responsibilities but not necessarily new authority.  

This article examines the intersection of gender and food systems in displacement in Mozambique and Zimbabwe. It is based in part on participatory research that explored the experiences of climate- and conflict-displaced communities conducted by the authors in 2023 and 2024.

The Effects of Displacement on Gender Roles

Zimbabwe and Mozambique are highly vulnerable to the adverse effects of environmental change, which has manifested in intensified cyclones, flooding, and droughts. These climatic events have disrupted communities, leading to displacement and the destruction of critical infrastructure. Agricultural livelihoods have suffered, exacerbating poverty and vulnerability. Often the backbone of rural economies, women have found themselves on the front lines. 

Importantly, these displacement dynamics are not confined to national borders, but have increasingly taken on a regional dimension. For example, in addition to the roughly 32,000 Zimbabweans who were internally displaced in 2024, several thousand sought asylum in South Africa and a much larger number have likely moved through various legal and irregular channels in response to escalating climate extremes and deteriorating livelihoods. Similarly, more than 8,000 Mozambican asylum seekers displaced by climatic shocks and insurgencies in the northern Cabo Delgado region had crossed into Zimbabwe and other nations as of 2024, although the vast majority (approximately 580,000) were displaced internally.

Climate-Induced Displacement in Zimbabwe

Cyclone Idai in 2019 displaced about 51,000 people in Zimbabwe, especially in the eastern Chimanimani and Chipinge districts. Unprecedented rains destroyed crops at a time when many inhabitants already faced hunger due to persistent drought and a deteriorating economy. Furthermore, the cyclone did extensive damage to infrastructure and agricultural land, rendering many areas uninhabitable and diminishing the prospect of recovery. 

The cyclone came on top of longer-term challenges with food security and other issues in Zimbabwe. In 2025, nearly 7.7 million Zimbabweans face food insecurity, according to the World Food Program. Idai struck amid ongoing economic and land-governance challenges stemming from a government effort to redistribute land owned by White commercial farmers. The country also experienced severe droughts stretching back to the 1990s, plus multiple prior heavy storms. In southwestern Tsholotsho, Cyclone Dineo in 2017 displaced thousands and made food and other resources scarce.

Displacement also increased poverty and reduced access to water, leading to conflicts between hosts and displaced communities. As one woman who had been displaced by Cyclone Dineo told the authors in Tsholotsho in December 2024, “In some cases, 60 to 70 households have to share a single borehole,” leading to increased burdens on women and social tensions over access to water.

While in some contexts researchers have shown that displacement had an empowering effect on women, granting them new responsibilities as primary breadwinners, the experience may also intensify pre-existing gender norms or increase their vulnerability to exploitation and violence. For instance, in Chimanimani, some men held the traditional belief that women had to do all domestic chores and work in the fields. Men asserted their authority as household heads, even though they may not have labored, and sometimes stole food or forcefully sold part of the women’s harvest to buy beer and other indulgences, and became violent when confronted. Many also asserted women should not own land.

Conflict and Climate in Mozambique

In Mozambique, conflict significantly compounds the impacts of climate-related hazards. The country has experienced recurring violence in Cabo Delgado since 2017, where armed insurgents have launched attacks along the coastal region. These attacks have displaced more than 1 million villagers, and 580,000 were displaced as of the end of 2024. Meanwhile, Tropical Cyclone Chido displaced around 536,000 people after making landfall in and around Cabo Delgado in December 2024, in Mozambique’s second highest disaster displacement on record, after the 640,000 people displaced by Cyclone Freddy in 2023.

Notably, the socioeconomic consequences of conflict and climate extremes have disproportionately affected women and marginalized groups. Women’s roles as caregivers, including managing household tasks and child care, compound their vulnerabilities in displacement. Their access to resources is often limited while risks of violence, exploitation, and trauma escalate.

The authors’ fieldwork in Mozambique’s Corrane settlement for internally displaced persons (IDPs) revealed how women’s roles expanded even as their agency remained constrained, and pre-existing gender disparities were further aggravated. For example, competition between host communities and IDPs over food, land, and water created social tensions, with women often at the center due to their roles managing food and livelihoods in the household. At the same time, men faced profound disruptions of their own: Many lost their traditional roles as providers and protectors, which sometimes led to feelings of disempowerment, psychological distress, and social exclusion. In Corrane, displaced men reported struggling to find employment or meaningful economic roles, contributing to increased frustration, substance abuse, return to Cabo Delgado, or violence against women.  

These shifts in gender roles strained household dynamics and community cohesion. Moreover, humanitarian responses often overlooked men’s psychosocial needs, focusing primarily on women and children, with adverse impacts on gender relations.   

Mozambique’s displacement has led to a profound transformation in livelihoods, affecting individuals and communities in multifaceted ways. Displaced populations have experienced limited access to food, education, health care, land, income-generating activities, and clean water. Tensions emerged in Corrane over food, land, and water, which in certain conditions could create a breeding ground for conflict.

Food Systems in Displacement 

The scholar Carolyn Steel has claimed that “in order to understand cities properly, we need to look at them through food.” Though she was referring to urban areas, the insight resonates equally elsewhere; food systems are not just about economics, but shape communities’ livelihoods, social structures, and cultural identities. In times of crisis, the disruption of these systems therefore tends not only to sever feelings of home and induce food insecurity, but profoundly change communities’ cultural and social dynamics, including gender relations.

Displacement presents unique challenges to food systems, as refugee and IDP settlements are often located in temporary or makeshift settings with little access to markets, trade routes, land, or essential resources. The absence of key components of a resilient food system—such as a stable market economy, natural resources, and productive inputs—threatens food security. Moreover, these contexts are often highly susceptible to climate hazards, due to inadequate infrastructure and poor socioeconomic conditions. The compounded, repeated, and prolonged pressures within displacement settings render food systems volatile and limit their capacity for resilience. It is within this intersection of environmental vulnerability, forced mobility, and disrupted traditional livelihoods that the critical, yet often overlooked, role of gender in food systems becomes strikingly evident.  

Food systems in Mozambique and Zimbabwe are deeply intertwined with socioeconomic and environmental challenges. Both nations rely heavily on agriculture as a cornerstone of their food systems, with recent figures showing that approximately 70 percent of each country’s population depends on agriculture for income or employment. As such, disrupting those food systems is equivalent to upsetting the countries’ social, political and economic foundations.

Regrettably, both countries’ food systems are highly vulnerable. Although land is abundant in many areas, its productivity is declining due to rising climatic pressures, compounded by socioeconomic strains that limit opportunities for agricultural innovation and access to irrigation, fertilizers, pesticides, and links to markets. All these aspects are even less available in displacement contexts. While these issues compromise food systems for everyone, their impacts are not felt equally; gender relations help determine who gets to eat. While women face heightened risks of food insecurity, malnutrition, and gender-based violence, men may experience loss of traditional livelihoods, identity, and social status. As such, both groups bear unequal burdens shaped by gender norms and access to resources.

Gender in Displacement-Affected Food Systems 

Within displacement-affected food systems, gender roles and relations are critical, particularly as displacement disrupts and reshapes traditional dynamics. Evidence indicates that displacement may magnify existing gendered inequalities and labor divisions, though in some cases it can reconfigure them. When communities are uprooted, food-related roles must adapt to new and often constrained environments. 

Women often face heightened challenges. They are typically responsible for cultivating staple crops and, post-harvest, tasks can extend to activities such as drying, storing, and processing food. Additionally, women manage essential household tasks such as meal preparation, collecting water and firewood, and ensuring family nutrition. When displacement limits access to land, agricultural inputs, and markets, women’s ability to sustain livelihoods and food security becomes restricted. 

Conversely, prior to displacement, men in both countries were primarily engaged in managing livestock, cultivating cash crops, preparing land (such as ploughing), and marketing produce, particularly for sale. Men also typically held decision-making power over land use, asset ownership, and access to external markets. Displacement disrupts these roles as well. Men lost access to and control over land and other resources, which can be perceived as a loss of status and breadwinning capability. Although all land in both countries is legally owned by the governments, land rights are commonly communal, passed down through generations. As a result, displaced populations must negotiate access with host communities that hold customary or historical claims to the land. For men, this process can be particularly disempowering or emasculating, and contributes to the scarcity of land and natural resources available to displaced populations. 

Furthermore, the breakdown of social networks and traditional support systems in displacement marginalizes women and men alike, diminishing their influence in household- and community-level decision-making and resource allocation. In both Zimbabwe and Mozambique, food systems rely heavily on rain-fed agriculture, and the lack of support in terms of agricultural inputs, assets, and secure land access further compounds food insecurity. Gendered impacts underscore the need for targeted interventions that recognize and address the differentiated experiences of men and women within displacement-affected food systems, ensuring that both are supported in rebuilding resilient and equitable livelihoods. 

Challenges and Missteps for Humanitarian Intervention

The ability of both climate change and conflict to disrupt food systems and increase malnutrition has been well documented. As such, humanitarian actors often aim to support food systems for displaced people. In Tsholotsho, Zimbabwe, displaced people were often provided with humanitarian assistance that included housing, cash, and food supplements. However, the assistance failed to accommodate displaced peoples’ livelihoods by also including fertile land for agriculture. “There is no fertile soil and no grazing land—where will the cattle eat?” explained a displaced man in Tsholotsho. As such, various family members were forced to return to their origin areas for farming at different times of the year. Hence, displaced populations had a foot in both the destination and origin areas.

This dynamic had several consequences. Women tended to remain in government-provided housing to take children to school, conforming with their gender–ascribed role of child rearer and caregiver. Men often had better transportation links, such as bicycles, making it easier to commute back and forth to farmland. This dynamic led many women to feel excluded, and created tensions between displaced people and the host community over access to limited shared resources such as boreholes for water.

It also disrupted the broader food supply chain. Many women opted to feed their children and husbands first, in line with gender expectations and social norms. A common sentiment during the authors’ focus group discussions with displaced women was that, when the food was limited, they gave the children food and mothers did not eat. For instance, one woman said, “When my children ask me why I am not eating with them, I pretend that I am not hungry.”  

Meanwhile in Mozambique, humanitarian actors at times prioritized aid for women, with multiple consequences on gender relations and household dynamics. Because many women had lost spouses and other relatives in the conflict or disasters, men arriving alone in settlements often sought out women to live with, to secure access to provisions, flipping the traditional patriarchal order of men as providers. With new relationships and family bonds formed out of necessity, women effectively became de facto breadwinners through the food rations they received from humanitarian interventions. Yet this dynamic also seemed to lead to episodes of violence against women, as men felt emasculated. 

Hence, humanitarian organizations’ attempt to promote gender equity in some ways backfired. Women reported that men remained household heads who ultimately controlled spending, exerted their authority, and expressed their financial frustrations through physical violence.

Retrenchment or Re-evaluation of Gender Roles

These cases underscore the multifaceted ways that displacement affects gender roles, particularly in relation to food. Traditional patriarchal structures frequently limit women’s participation in decision-making about food, which can hinder the adoption of effective food-security initiatives and overlook women’s practical knowledge, daily experiences, and unique needs. Displacement can further erode women’s agency, making them more dependent on external aid or male relatives in new settings.

However, displacement can also, in some cases, prompt a re-evaluation of gender roles, with both positive and negative consequences. Women may be forced into new economic roles or adopt greater responsibilities in the absence of male relatives, such as when men migrate to find work, potentially leading to increased autonomy and new forms of leadership in the long run. Similarly, men may adopt new roles within the household or community, which, as the Mozambique case demonstrates, may make them dependent on women who have assumed breadwinner status. While this can be seen as gender transformation, it might not be if men feel emasculated and lash out with violence or other abuse. From this angle, humanitarian efforts at cultural sensitivity and inclusion must strike a balance by promoting gender equity and equality while at the same time not excluding men who are also affected by food poverty. The consequences of not striking this balance may end up harming the very women whom interventions intend to protect and empower.  

The Value of a Gender Perspective

Efforts to build security and wellbeing for people on the move go hand-in-hand with efforts to build sustainable and resilient food systems. Using a gender lens on these dynamics is a helpful tool to understand them.

In most displacement contexts, money is not circulating, and access to productive assets is extremely limited. Improving economic resilience through cash-based intervention, improved transportation, and market access could strengthen local economic value chains. This is particularly important for women who are often deprioritized for movement and market access. Additionally, it is important to keep in mind that displacement-affected food systems are often at high risk, due to poor infrastructure as well as being situated in climate-vulnerable areas. As such, access to weather forecasting, early-warning systems, and climate-smart technology and innovation is particularly important in these locations, yet severely lacking due to limited access to technology and internet services and availability in local languages.

As policymakers and humanitarian actors seek security, they would do well to consider the impacts of both traditional and transformed gender roles in building food security and in other domains. Examples from Zimbabwe and Mozambique show the often unexpected ways that displacement can reshape gender roles, especially regarding food.

Research highlighted in this article was carried out with support from the CGIAR Climate Action Science Program and the CGIAR Food Frontiers and Security Science Program.

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