Experts and stakeholders working in disaster risk management (DRM) have made a call to better integrate gender equality and social inclusion into DRM, in order to address the issues of women, children, persons with disabilities, poor and other vulnerable groups.
This call was made at experts consultations, organized in two phases in December by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA) with the support of UNDP. The dialogue events led to the development of a set of suggested key actions, with policy level implications, to make gender equality and social inclusion an integral part of disaster risk management, with GESI responsive targets indicators and measurable results in all DRM programmes and projects. The discussions were made at practitioner and policy levels, to bring together all disaster risk reduction stakeholders from local, national and international arenas in one platform for wider consultations on key challenges, lessons learned and devising a way forward towards agendas on post 2015 development goals and the Hyogo Framework for Action 2.
The events featured broad representation and participation from government ministries and departments, Nepal police, national academia, I/NGOs, community leaders, researchers, students, donor partners, media, cluster leads and co-leads, Flagship members, UN agencies and other DRR stakeholders.
Both events were held in a participatory manner. At the practitioners’ workshop participants shared and discussed key challenges, and drafted a set of potential, action-oriented, steps forward, with according policy implications. The outcomes of the practitioners’ workshop were shared at the policy level workshop, where policy stakeholders reviewed and further built on a forward approach.
The Ministry of Home Affairs is committed to the recommendations from both events and will promote and follow up to integrate gender and Inclusive disaster risk management for beyond 2015 and towards HFA2.
The Training Manual "Integrating Gender and Social Inclusion into Disaster/Climate Risk Management’ and guideline "To Integrate Gender and Social Inclusion in Disaster/Climate Risk Management Programmes" was also launch by Mr. Rameshwor Dangal, Joint Secretary, MoHA and Sophie Kemkhadze, Deputy Country Director, UNDP.
Senior advocate and former Constituent Assembly member Ms. Sapana Malla, in her keynote address, emphasized the importance of ensuring gender and social inclusion be an integral part of disaster risk management. She also highlighted some of the gaps, challenges and recommended measures such as: more gender and inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction and Disaster Recovery Committees, as well as the inclusion of a gender and inclusive disaster risk management plan in the next Fourteenth Periodic Plan of Nepal.