Women’s Leadership in Disaster Risk Reduction: examples from the Arab States

The publication constitutes an initial step in documenting, collecting, and sharing gender-responsive disaster risk reduction and lessons learned from across the Arab States region, and covers disaster reduction initiatives aimed at reducing the impact of disasters on women.  This compilation of best practices is the first of its kind in the Arab States region and draws from documented experiences of mainstreaming gender in disaster risk reduction, collected through desk review and consultation with the respective experts.

These experiences and lessons learned are presented through twenty-five case studies and classified into five Themes Areas: Theme I: Integrating Gender into Community-Based Disaster Risk Reduction; Theme II: Women on the Front Line in the Fight against COVID-19; Theme III: Gender Mainstreaming for Sustainable Development; Theme IV: Preventing and Responding to Gender-Based Violence through Disaster Risk Reduction; and Theme V: Gender-Responsive Disaster Risk Reduction in the Agriculture and Water Sector. Each of the case studies presented is in turn broken down into five sections: an introduction to the initiative, impact, and results, the good practice emerging from the initiative, the lessons learned, and the potential for replication. The document also includes three short briefings relating to further pertinent experience from the region.

These best practices document is the result of a collaborative effort, containing input from experts from the Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Group; UN agencies, including UN-Habitat, UNFPA, WFP, UN Women, FAO, and IOM; the Arab Water Council, and Oxfam. The case studies shared herein also include a range of contributions from respective national governments in the Arab States region, namely, those of Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Mauritania, State of Palestine, Somalia, Tunisia, UAE, and Yemen.