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Women play a major role in agriculture. It is revealed that women, on average, spend 10 hours a day on work relative to men’s 8.5 hours in agricultural activity. Despite their vital role in agriculture, women farmers often remain overlooked in scientific research, societal perceptions, and agricultural extension services, neglecting their significant contributions to agricultural production. Agriculture is the backbone of the Ethiopian economy, which employs about 80% of the population and generates more than 85% of the foreign exchange earnings. The recent drought of 2015-2016 in the region has resulted in up to 70% crop failure and caused 13 million people in Ethiopia alone to become food insecure.

Boserup, Kanji, Fei, & Toulmin (2011) explained that there are three small-scale subsistence farming systems in Africa: tasks done almost exclusively by women, predominantly by women and predominantly by men. In the three cases, women are involved with different levels of engagement due to the tradition of gender-based division of labour. Adequate food supply and equitable distribution at the household level are prerequisites to achieving nutrition security (Gopalan, 2001). Yet the word farmer is associated with man in the minds of society and individuals with significant influence on development activities, such as bureau heads, development agents, and peasant associations. Hence, it is difficult to achieve the country’s national food security by ignoring half of the population (women) from capacity-building activities and access to factors of production. The study aims to develop nature-based alternative scenarios, investigate climate change’s impacts on women for forest management and restoration, and identify options for enhancing livelihoods to mitigate existing water stress in the Borena, Oromia Region, Ethiopia.