6 April 2021 – by Atoosa Gitiforoz
The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women Gender and Disaster Network, and, the Arab Water Council, organised a webinar: ‘Gender, Climate Change, and Migration: Promising Policy and Programmatic Practice in addressing Linkages from a Gender Equality and a Women’s Leadership Perspective.’
The event took place on March 23, 2021, gathering NGOs, CSOs and CBOs, think tanks, academic bodies, the private sector as well as regional and national stakeholders. At the event, the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) directed participants to the Sendai Framework Voluntary Commitments platform to submit their gender-related commitments and promote their work.
The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, adopted at the Third UN World Conference in Sendai, Japan, on March 18, 2015 – with a roadmap to reduce disaster losses by 2030, holds a particular focus on women’s capacity development, gender-disaggregated data and gender equality across policy and planning initiatives. It ‘is the first major agreement of the post-2015 development agenda, with seven targets and four priorities for action.’
One of four priorities (Priority 4) in the current Sendai Framework: ‘Enhancing disaster preparedness for effective response, and to «Build Back Better» in recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction.’, points to women and persons with disabilities to be public leaders in reconstruction and response phases to climate disasters. This follows from findings so far that women, children and people in vulnerable situations are disproportionately affected by climate disasters. Hence it is vital that women participate in implementing gender-sensitive disaster risk reduction policies and initiatives.
In practice, the Sendai Framework recommends investment into capacity development and maintenance into grassroots organisations and women’s groups that are knowledgeable of local needs and function as important community mobilizers. The Sendai Framework remains open to submissions of commitments for Disaster Risk Reduction.
