Protecting the Most Vulnerable Groups in Society

Natural disasters do not discriminate. However, their impacts are far from gender-neutral. The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction stresses the need to integrate gender perspectives in all disaster-related policies and practices, as well as to promote women’s leadership at all levels of society.

Existing gender inequalities mean that women are disproportionately affected by disasters. A 2007 study by researchers at the London School of Economics and Political Science and the University of Essex found that between 1981 and 2002, natural disasters in 141 countries killed significantly more women than men. The worse the disaster, the bigger the gender disparity.

This is the second compilation of good practices on integrating gender into humanitarian action in Asia, developed on behalf of the the IASC Regional Network Working Group on Gender in Humanitarian Action in Asia-Pacific.