Women in Risk Reduction and Resilience Building:

Stories from Asia - Pacific

Duryog Nivaran & Stakeholder Group on Women and Gender Equality in the UNISDR Asia Pacific Partnership

Ignite Stage, WCDRR, 15 March 2015

• For HFA2 Key Area 4 Asia Pacific document on ‘Women as a force in resilience building and gender equity in DRR’, case studies of how women have been involved in resilience building in the region were collected to build the recommendations on proven practice.

• We will present a few success stories from among the case studies that provided input.

Knowledge – gender differentials

• Is there a gendered knowledge gap?• If so, do we need to take into account the

knowledge, the perspectives of both when planning and implementing work that affects them?

• Let’s listen to our colleague from the Pacific with a story from Bua that illustrates this.

The gendered knowledge gap in Bua, Fiji

By Karen Bernard, UNDP Pacific Centre and Margaret Fox, Wildlife Conservation Society

(WCS)- Fiji Program, presented by Kairangi Samuela, Punanga Tauturu Inc – Cook Islands

Introducing Bua Province

• Southern coast of Fiji’s second largest island, Vanua Levu

• 14,176 people in 58 villages• Subsistence economy, some commercial

fishing and agricultural activities• Recent incursion of foreign companies engaged

in bauxite mining • Intermittent gold mining in the adjacent

province.

Wildlife Conservation Society Study, 2011

• Identify, document local practices for climate change adaptation

• Integrate with science-based solutions promoting sustainable use and natural systems.

• Household interview survey • Investigated sea grasses perceptions, current

status along coastline.

Seagrass

• Seagrass is an important habitat for certain marine life that live in intertidal and shallow subtidal areas, and is also a food source for some fish and turtles

• Damage to sea grass is considered as one indicator of the recent incidence of cyclones, heavy rainfall and associated flooding.

Findings

• Higher percentage of women understood the status and ecological value of the sea grass, compared with men.

• Women were also able to provide more details about the abundance, scarcity and/or occasional disappearance of species such as mussels which grow on the tidal flats (kai koso) and in the rivers (kai ni waidranu),

• Knew of the presence of mangrove crabs, shrimp, and mud lobsters in the mangroves

• The women in Bua acquired this knowledge through their daily subsistence activities, in which they routinely went out on the tidal flats and nearby areas to collect these sea creatures, which provide an important source of protein in their family’s diet.

Gendered division of labourMen mainly engaged in fishing activities further out on the

ocean,• such as commercial diving for sea cucumber• spear fishing for emperors, Spanish mackerel, lobsters

and parrotfish, as well as handline fishing in the outer reefs or deeper waters for groupers, barracuda and snappers.

• are more involved in commercial sales of fish, • in contrast to the women, who focus on subsistence to

feed their families.• pelagic fish species are quite sensitive to changes in

ocean temperature often associated with climate change. • If no sharks are found in a particular stretch of the

ocean, this may signal an absence of fish for them to feed on,

• Overfishing and destructive fishing practices may also be aggravating factors.

Implications for Climate Change Analysis

• Recognise that women and men have different experiences of their environment

• Input from both men and women required to enrich analysis

• Recognise and understand the diverse cultural expectations on men and womens roles in the community

• Men and women have different indicators and markers of change

Woman from Bua Province capturing a

mud crab. (c) Rebeca Weeks,

Wildlife Conservation

Society

Men from Bua Province harvesting commercially important invertebrates. (c) Stacy Jupiter, Wildlife Conservation Society

Women and men of Kubulau District, Bua Province, reviewing their management rules

together. (c) Stacy Jupiter, Wildlife Conservation Society

Training: done right, can go a long way

Case study from India:An ongoing programme since 2012 for school teachers, reaching out thousands of teachers from more than 25 districts of Assam state of India.

The target audience is educators (many are

women teachers).

Training of officials, especially female officials, within the implementing organizations/government officials

can make a big difference in participation by women/girls as well as a project’s success.

Special focus on girl's participation in

practical exercises like evacuation drills.

Networking: empowering decision making

• The community in Thirikovil (Ampara district Sri Lanka) suffered great losses by tsunami and years of the armed civil conflict.

Policy to support and guide context specific gender analysis in planning

• Japan Women’s Network for Disaster Risk Reduction ‘How we wrote gender perspective into Japan’s 6 disaster legislation’

Thank You for Your Interest

For more details, please see:

The publication is available @ Prevention Web