Surviving Drought: Nomadic Women and Girls in Southeast Morocco

Abstract This study examines how nomadic women and girls cope with drought using a gendered, context-specific approach. Semi-structured interviews with 17 nomads in southeast Morocco's Tinghir region reveal that prolonged drought alters household labour, delays girls' education, increases livestock-related debt, reshapes gender expectations, such as postponing marriage, and heightens emotional stress. At the same time, women demonstrate adaptive agency through collective efforts, livelihood adjustments, and faith-based meaning-making, thereby strengthening emotional resilience during drought. The findings indicate that drought is a social phenomenon as well as an environmental one, exacerbating pre-existing inequalities and relying heavily on women’s unpaid labour and resilience. Keywords: drought, gendered vulnerability, nomadic women, resilience, climate adaptation