Transcript Sustainable Relief and Reconstruction

Addressing Urban Risk Reduction For
Women and Vulnerable Groups
‘The role of Women in Humanitarian Disasters –
challenges for Norwegian Policy”
UN-HABITAT
Urban Risk and Vulnerability

Urban Risk: ‘Vulnerability to disasters due to
location of settlements’
– Often in an urban setting ‘natural disasters are
anything but natural’

Urban Vulnerability: ‘Level of Vulnerability to
risk’
– degree of exposure of people, infrastructure and
economic activities to a physical event or hazard
Unfortunately…
Reality shows that
poor and
vulnerable groups
are most risk- due
to substandard
housing and
construction
practices, lack of
infrastructure,
secure tenure.
Women and Vulnerable
Groups
1.
2.
3.
Poverty reduces choicepoor often live in
marginal disaster prone
areas
Poor, women, children,
the elderly and disabled
are often the most
vulnerable and affected
the worst as they tend to
have less access to
services and alternative
coping mechanisms
Unplanned urbanizationcontributes to
vulnerability of
communities, particularly
women to disasters. For
instance in 2001 SSA had
71,9% of its population
living in slums.
Disaster risk and vulnerability
reduction
 Disaster
risk reduction is about tackling
the fundamental elements of disaster risk
 Reducing
vulnerability is about
understanding and addressing
underlying process of impoverishment
Opportunities for Risk Reduction
Women and Vulnerable groups


Pre disaster: reduce
vulnerability
(livelihood, equal
access to information,
mainstream gender
into ongoing research)
Post Disaster: Build
their capacities to
manage risk
(mainstream gender
in relief and
reconstruction
activities)
Sadly…
Both national and
international
priorities for
disaster risk
reduction tend to
be low only until a
disaster happens.
However there are
opportunities to
overcome this…
Hyogo Framework for Action
2005-2015


World Conference on disaster reduction (19-22
January 2005, Kobe, Hyogo Japan)
3 goals
– More effective integration of disaster risk consideration
into sustainable development policies
– Building capacities of institutions
– Systematic incorporation of risk reduction into design
and implementation of disaster management


Comprehensive integration of gender.
But reporting status shows there is still a long
way to go…
Policy Implications for Norway





Forefront on fronting the Hyogo framework in all
its development cooperation framework
In Humanitarian relief emphasis on ‘building back
better’ in line with UN-Habitat SR&R approach;
Mainstream gender within humanitarian and
development cooperation, including early
warming, indicator development
Focus on urban vulnerabilities for women, such
as lack of secure tenure and economic
opportunities
Ensure coordination in the UN system on gender
mainstreaming