© UNDRR
March 15, 2021
The gist:
A recent event hosted by: The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), Women’s International Network for Disaster Risk Reduction (WIN DRR), the UN Women and UNDRR’s Regional Office for Asia and Pacific, “distilled decades of experience in governance and resilience building,” into “a dialogue about the ways in which women’s leadership has reduced disaster risk, and how these lessons can shape a more equal post-pandemic future.”
You have heard it before that, “women and girls are disproportionately affected by disaster due to structural and gender inequalities that exist in all societies.” And the way the pandemic has played out for womxn in the US economy is yest another example of this being true. Ms. Mami Mizutori, the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction relates that, “Women are experiencing growing unemployment rates, coupled with an increased burden of unpaid care work.”
The UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which in 2018 adopted its seminal General Recommendation No. 37 on the gender-related dimensions of disaster risk reduction in the context of climate change, demands that women be the decision makers when it comes to risk and disaster.
We think, it’s time for these concerns to be understood, reported on and managed not solely by world relief and statistical agencies. And to realize that helping women anywhere, helps all of us everywhere.
Read the entire article here.
