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2015-2016 El Niño Response Papua New Guinea: Gender in Emergencies Lessons Learnt

Страны
Папуа-Новая Гвинея
Источники
CARE
Дата публикации

The frequency and intensity of natural hazards such as droughts, cyclones and tsunamis in Papua New Guinea (PNG) are increasing each year, putting more and more people at risk. These emergencies impact differently on women, men, girls and boys, depending on their status in society, their capacity to cope and respond and their gender roles and responsibilities in the household and in the community. Women and girls are at particular risk due to their increased workload and caring responsibilities. Women and girls also face secondary gendered risks that result from disasters, including increased gender-based violence (GBV), including forced marriage and trafficking, and impaired sexual and reproductive health (SRH).

The 2015-2016 El Niño affected food and water sources, and CARE International in PNG (CARE PNG) responded with an integrated package that included health, nutrition, food security and agriculture recovery, WASH, and disaster response training and coordination support to provincial and district governments in the Highlands. Throughout the response, CARE focussed on the different needs of women, men, girls and boys as well as how CARE’s activities could contribute to gender transformational change.
The purpose of this document is to share CARE’s lessons from the El Niño response and record learning for promoting gender equality and ensuring the safety and dignity of women and girls during humanitarian responses to disasters in Papua New Guinea.

Based on lessons learned from the El Niño response, CARE highlights the need to:

  • Ensure assessments specifically ask questions about gender;
  • Ensure all field teams for assessments, distributions and field activities are gender-balanced;
  • Adapt practices to the local context to ensure women and vulnerable groups are included in all humanitarian decision-making and activities;
  • Consider how individual activities can enable women’s meaningful participation;
  • Promote gender-inclusive measures within humanitarian coordination activities and forums;
  • Ensure confidential feedback mechanisms are accessible to women; and * Include gender-awareness training as part of rapid recruitment/orientation of staff.