Gender perspectives in disasters to be mainstreamed by ASEAN

At the latest Meeting of the ASEAN Committee on Disaster Management (ACDM) the leaders from the ASEAN National Disaster Management Organisations committed to mainstreaming gender perspectives on disaster management.

The meeting took place on 26-28 June 2018 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and was opened by Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia Dato’ Seri Dr Wan Azizah binti Wan Ismail.

The Deputy Prime Minister opened the meeting by emphasising the need to manage disasters holistically and co-ordinately.

Women are disproportionately affected during disasters and in the aftermath but are often not included in disaster risk planning and risk management strategies. The leaders at the ACDM Meeting agreed that to improve disaster resilience all community members must be included in planning.

The meeting also agreed to introduce new initiatives on women, peace and security and to strengthen efforts in gender mainstreaming for disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.

It is hoped that these new initiatives will increase the role of women as key disaster response and humanitarian actors throughout the disaster management process.

Disaster Response and Resilience will be a key discussion point at the upcoming AIDF Global Summit.

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Image credit: ASEAN