Call for good practices: Integrating gender in Early Warning Systems

The impacts of disasters affect men and women differently. Due to a variety of socio-economic and cultural factors women tend to be more vulnerable to the negative effects of hazards and often suffer more during emergency situations. According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), women are 14 times more likely than men to lose their lives during a disaster. They also play a pivotal role in emergency preparedness and response as well as in disaster risk reduction.

The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, adopted by the United Nations Member States on 18 March, 2015, recognizes the importance of gender and women’s empowerment for disaster risk reduction and strengthening the resilience of nations and communities. Through the priority 4 of the Sendai Framework, this international framework recognises that "empowering women and persons with disabilities to publicly lead and promote gender equitable and universally accessible response, recovery rehabilitation and reconstruction approaches are key".

The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) through its regional office for the Americas is carrying out a call for good practices throughout Central America and the Caribbean on integrating gender and women’s empowerment in Early Warning Systems (EWS). Good practices will be selected based on the following criteria:

• Thematic relevance
• General approach
• Relevance
• Replicability
• Sustainability

The initiative is developed in the context of the project “Implementing the post 2015 Disaster Risk Reduction framework in the Caribbean at the local, national and regional levels”, financed by the European Commission's Humanitarian aid and Civil Protection department (ECHO) through the DIPECHO Humanitarian Action Plan 2015-2016.
An EWS is the set of capacities to generate and disseminate timely and meaningful information to alert and enable people, communities or organizations threatened by a natural hazard. Studies showed that such information often does not reach men and women equally and the subsequent emergency measures do not consider differentiated gender aspects that affect women in particular. By incorporating a gender perspective in EWS, it will allow women to strengthen their capacity to be more resilient, and in this way facilitate society as a whole to be better prepared in case of an emergency.
Good practices

The selection of experiences will be based on the selection criteria mentioned above, as well as on considerations of geographic diversity. UNISDR will facilitate the participation of the selected organizations to present the experiences in two regional events planned in the Caribbean.
The call is addressed to representatives of government agencies, non-governmental organizations, civil society organizations, communities and cooperation agencies from local, national, subregional and regional levels.
Application form

The presentation of the experience must be sent in Word format, Arial font 11, and should not exceed 2 pages. A brief overview of the person and organization submitting the experience must also be included, as per the following information:

1. General information

• Title of the experience
• Country and locality where the experience took place
• Organization presenting the submittal
• Name, surname and position of the person submitting the experience
• Telephone number (including the country code)
• Email

2. The good practice

• General background: What needs the project responded to and what was achieved?
• Description: what was done?
• How was this initiative innovative?
• Impact and means of verification: what were the results?

The key elements of the success: how the experience could be multiplied or replicated?

3. Presentation of proposals

All submittals must be sent by no later than 30 July, 2015. Submittals should be sent by email to Cyril Fonteneau at cfonteneau@eird.org and Jennifer Guralnick at jguralnick@eird.org