Accelerating Action for Gender Responsive Disaster Risk Reduction

The Midterm Review of the Sendai Framework was called for by the UN General Assembly to “assess progress in integrating disaster risk reduction into policies, programmes and investments at all levels, identify good practice, gaps and challenges and accelerate the path to achieving the goal of the Sendai Framework and its seven global targets by 2030”. Effort has been made to ensure the Midterm Review process is itself gender-responsive, with specific gender guidance issued for countries to support the voluntary national reviews.

Countries and other stakeholders’ reports on the Midterm Review of the Sendai Framework (MTR SF) have pointed to gender equality in disaster risk reduction as lagging behind, hence remaining a high priority cross-cutting issue in its implementation. This is also borne out by an extensive body of research in countries across all regions.

The Agreed Conclusions of the 66th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women in 2022, called for the creation of a Gender Action Plan (GAP) for the Sendai Framework. This call was echoed in the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction Co-Chairs’ Summary (paragraph 72). A GAP for the Sendai Framework would build upon progress made to date and identify key priority actions to accelerate implementation to 2030.

The establishment of a GAP for the Sendai Framework is in line with other climate change and environment treaty plans which have similar mechanisms – including the UNFCCC’s Enhanced Lima Work Programme on Gender and its Gender Action Plan, first adopted in 2017 and extended in 2019; the Convention on Biological Diversity, now on its third plan since 2008, with the Gender Plan of Action 2022; and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification Gender Action Plan 2017.

In line with calls from the CSW66 and the GPDRR to develop a Gender Action Plan (GAP) for the Sendai Framework, UNDRR, UNFPA and UN Women have initiated a multi-stakeholder consultation process to conclude a Sendai Framework GAP as technical document by the end of 2023.

This event will be held as part of the DRR Hub in association with the High-Level Meeting of the UN General Assembly (18-19 May 2023) that will conclude the MTR SF. It will provide an opportunity to report back on initial consultations and stimulate a much wider discussion on persisting barriers to gender-responsive disaster risk reduction, the priorities informing the development of the GAP, and key actions needed to accelerate the gender-responsive implementation of the Sendai Framework by 2030.

Objectives of the event

• Identify priorities for gender equality and women’s empowerment that will help to accelerate the implementation of the Sendai Framework by 2030.
• Report back on initial consultations and promote the continued development of a Gender Action Plan for the Sendai Framework, as well as the benefits of its implementation on the ground.
• Showcase concrete commitments from key stakeholders on the topic of gender-responsive disaster risk reduction and encourage countries to make a political commitment to support development and implementation of a Gender Action Plan in the context of the MTR SF.

The event will be an in-person event with access for persons with disabilities. There will be simultaneous interpretation in all 6 UN languages, international deaf signing and closed captioning. The event will also be live streamed in a format that is accessible to persons with disabilities, potentially with online questions or contributions from remote participants (TBC).