GGCA Gender and Climate Change Training Manual - Women's ...

According to Burón, risk management is a process whose ultimate aim,
as part of a sustainable development proposal in the social, economic and
territorial spheres, is the permanent reduction and control of disasters in society
(Burón, 2007). In other words, risk management is the result of the capacities of
societies and their stakeholders to transform risk by acting on its external and
underlying causes. It includes intervention methods and means that tend to
reduce, mitigate or prevent disasters.
Disaster risk management and climate change adaptation
efforts should be integrated. The Oslo Policy Forum Report recognized
Box 5
Example of the consequences of the lack of a gender response
in early warning systems
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• During the Bangladesh cyclone of 1991, early warning signals did not reach large
numbers of women. The information was passed through the market places, and
because Bangladesh society is highly sex-segregated, many women do not have
easy access to market places.
• It had been expected that men would convey the warning to their family
members but they did not do so; consequently women were uninformed, unprepared,
and unable to respond to the risks of disaster for themselves, their children, and
their belongings.
• Relief distribution centres and shelters were reported to be ill-suited for women’s
gender and culture-specific needs: in a social context where seclusion is customary,
the shelters were reported to be crowded and lacked privacy for pregnant, lactating
and menstruating women. Shelters also lacked separate toilets and adequate water
supplies (UNEP, 1997).
• Studies have shown that ensuring women have access to the warning systems,
achieves positive results. In Hawaii during the 1998 El Niño event, women were
targeted with early warning information that included information about treating
drinking water; this succeeded in significantly reducing the incidence of diarrhoea
(Kinoti, 2008).
• In rural communities of El Salvador, women were taught how to use radios in order
to report on rising water levels. This led to more effective early warning information
for the whole community (Enarson et al., 2003).
• There are disaster warning information needs specific to women. A study conducted
in South Africa reported that women farmers preferred seasonal climate forecast
information to be relayed by extension workers or through schools as opposed to
the radio, which was the preferred medium for men since men have greater access
as well as more time to listen to radios (Kinoti, 2008).
Module 4