Abstract

This study investigated household vulnerability to climate change and the factors affecting vulnerability of the households at Mpolonjeni Area Development Programme in Swaziland. Primary data were collected through personal interviews from 323 randomly sampled households. The household vulnerability index was used to establish household vulnerability and the multinomial logistic regression model was used to identify the factors affecting household vulnerability. The results show that 39.6% of the households were lowly vulnerable, 58.2% were moderately vulnerable and 2.2% were highly vulnerable. Parameter estimates of the multinomial regression model show that the number of sick members, number of employed members, number of dependants, household size and the livestock index influence households to move from low vulnerability to moderate vulnerability or high vulnerability. Households are vulnerable to external shocks thus appropriate policy interventions should be put in place. A health policy would help reduce vulnerability of households and a rural development policy would create employment opportunities leading to improved livelihoods.

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