Men and women, boys and girls have different experiences of disasters. Gender dynamics impact both the way they are affected by disasters and their capacity to withstand and recover from them. Gender inequalities can result in gender-differentiated disaster impact, and differentiated impacts can influence gender dynamics, which in turn affect future resilience to shocks.
Disaster risk management policies are designed to maximize results, taking local conditions—including gender dynamics—as fixed. When women and men are affected differently by disasters, practitioners and policy makers have a responsibility to use the tools available for mitigating disaster impacts to close gender gaps in outcome. An improved understanding of the gender dynamics of disaster risk and resilience also allows for better policy and program design, which benefits all stakeholders.
Debunking myths and stereotypes, and uncovering the underlying drivers of gendered outcomes, are important components of that effort. Recognizing that there are multiple vectors of vulnerability and exclusion, calling for more contextualized and nuanced analysis is also vital. This is what this report, Gender Dimensions of Disaster Risk and Resilience—Existing Evidence, seeks to achieve.
This report reviews existing evidence and data on how men and women, boys and girls are impacted by, prepare for and cope with disasters. It is not about depicting women and girls as perpetually worse-off victims of disasters; rather, it is about recognizing that men and women, boys and girls are affected in different ways. The report objectives are to:
- Identify gender gaps in disaster outcomes and resilience—and the underlying drivers of those gaps—to create better policies and programs
- Identify the most important knowledge and data gaps, which will guide the next steps for analytics in this space
- Offer an operationally useful framework that can be used for local assessments of gender dynamics in disaster risk and resilience. (author abstract) #P4HEwebinarJune2024