Rapid Assessment for Resilient Recovery and ... - GFDRR

system of village health volunteers. In both rural and urban areas health volunteers are
assigned the responsibility of caring for a group of vulnerable households. In addition to
healthcare, additional support in terms of food distribution was channeled to these groups.
Income support schemes provide much need resources to help vulnerable households
cope with the reduction in income and additional expenditures brought about by the floods.
The amounts provided are, however, limited. The team observed instances in the visited areas
where elderly and disabled individuals supplement their income support through small
businesses (street vendors in particular). A growing debt burden was, however, also
observed with the limited profits made being used to pay high interest rates to informal
money lenders.
Gender Mainstreaming in Relief Operations
Relief operations, in all three provinces visited were managed by men with high ranking
officials interviewed all being male (provincial governors, heads of each provincial department,
and presidents of the local administration organizations). As a result, women’s voices were
mostly absent from high level decisions and coordination of government response to the
disaster. The research team did not find examples at field level of implementing agencies
using gender sensitive approaches for disaster relief. For example, the training on Disaster
Risk Mitigation did not specifically include a gender dimension in the planning and mitigation
sessions.
In the initial relief stage, consultations on gender-specific relief needs were not held. The
distribution of support, such as seeds and inputs for farms or cash for work programs so far
did not seem to take into account gender-specific needs. For example, women in the villages
visited also reported that the cash for work scheme (with the exception of cooking activities)
tend to be very labor intensive and focused on heavy work usually done by men. As a
result, women believe that they are not able to benefit much from these programs, and thus
may be unable to access these temporary work opportunities particularly during the relief
and recovery period. Sex-disaggregated data was mostly not collected, making targeting
support more challenging. For example, the initial numbers of deaths and other emergency
assistance information were not sex-disaggregated, resulting in the first phase of emergency
assistance missing opportunities to target women and men’s different needs (such as
content of emergency bags, and gender conscious shelter management). The emergency
survival kits, for example, were not “gender specific” although they did contain some of the
items needed by men and women (such as sanitary napkins, razors, flashlights).
Availability of Information
In spite of the generally positive findings regarding the coverage of assistance, communities
also reported that the information provided on the type of support available was often
contradictory. For example, participants in the study in all provinces reported being
informed that the THB 5,000 was intended for emergency support and in other occasions
being told that it would be programmed for the repair of damaged housing. Some communities
received accurate information about the support available for housing reconstruction but
their areas did not receive the funding to implement the programs. Communities specifically
requested that the information be simplified (with less technical jargon) and provided on a
timely basis to enable them to access the relevant programs.
228 THAI FLOOD 2011 RAPID ASSESSMENT FOR RESILIENT RECOVERY AND RECONSTRUCTION PLANNING