Myanmar is considered as one of the most disaster prone countries in the region as well as globally. Cyclone Nargis in 2008 killed around 140,000 people in the Ayeyarwaddy delta and the floods of 2015 had a wide spread impacts across 12 out of 14 States and Region. Further recent studies rank Myanmar as one of the global hotspots for climate change associated risks. Myanmar is slow transitioning to integrate with the global economic community after four decades of isolation. Country is faced with multitude of challenges, not just limited to financial resources. Disasters, along with climate change, negatively impact local and national development. Private sector engagement in broader socio-economic development has been limited as the country followed a socialist economy for over 4 decades. Aftermath of Cyclone Nargis, Myanmar’s largest business federation “the Union of Myanmar Chamber of Commerce and Industries (UMFCCI)” played an important role in rehabilitation and reconstruction in the Ayeyearwaddy Delta and similarly in 2015 floods, UMFCCI played a role in supporting the Government and also working with humanitarian agencies.
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Post-2015, Sendai framework for disaster risk reduction (DRR) signaled a clear message that gender equality considerations required a stronger implementation focus and called for high engagement and promotion of women’s leadership in DRR. Evidence coming from around the globe confirms the importance of women leadership in DRR activities since women play a significant role throughout the disaster management cycle, despite having specific challenges of cultural and gender norms. However, participation of women as change agents and leaders in their societies are not adequately recognize to include in decision making process and still often overlooked in disaster risk reduction, where women are often categorize as a vulnerable group and there are very limited opportunities for women’s leadership at all levels in the region.
Although there have been global commitments to integrate gender perceptive in DRR from global and regional legal frameworks on disaster management, the challenge now is to identify very practical ways and means to incorporate the knowledge and capacity of women in decision-making fully. Progress in mainstreaming gender into DRR is slow and gender considerations still remain largely marginalized from the DRR process. This is particularly true at the national level where program implementation is carried out because only a small group of professionals working in disaster management areas possess the two major concepts of gender and DRR knowledge/capacity which are linked to each other. A large majority of professionals and decision makers in the development and disaster fields lack sufficient awareness of gender issues. Likewise, Gender focal points have insufficient technical expertise in DRR field to promote gender equality by addressing the concerns of both men and women, the relations between them and the root causes of imbalances. Strengthening women’s leadership in building disaster resilience requires addressing the issue of resources, technical and financial including gender budgeting in disaster risk reduction, the issue of representation at all levels. Among the several aspects of enabling environment (planning, budgeting, and policy frameworks) and enabling local context (capacity building, reducing social vulnerabilities) which help the inclusive disaster management and resilience building, awareness raising and capacity development on DRR for the women themselves and community around them is fundamental to help increase their ability to respond to changing issues with innovative solutions. Since women’s active engagement in community in disaster preparedness, risk reduction and mitigation programs can be shaped or restricted by local contexts, attitudinal and cultural constraints need to be tackled through proper education and awareness. As my professional experience in promoting women’s participation and leadership in DRR in Myanmar to ensure that the voices of women and children are better reflected in disaster preparedness, there were success stories that the trainings helped the women to practice public speaking and built their confidence because they had to discuss their opinions and thoughts during the training. Women are generally used to stay in the house and do not have the confidence to speak out about their opinions and raise their concerns about disasters. Through capacity development trainings, women who thought that village development and disaster preparedness activities were not their concern, became proactive initiators in activities of mainstreaming risk reduction into village development activities after the training. Another point is that women are more likely to rely on each other and mobilize collective social capital through networking to resolve many of the issues they face including issues related to DRR. Therefore, women professional networks/ affinity networks are created as platforms for better access to information and they should be empowered through proper capacity building process on resilience issues so that networks become vibrant and active in delivering actions. Making society aware of women’s active contribution and in instances leadership to development and DRM could help women become more active agents of positive change. Training professionals and media personnel to support change of attitude is vital to create the environment for women to become a force of resilience building. All the actions at all levels need to recognize the productive and constructive role women play in disaster risk reduction, response and recovery; as well as recognize and address the specific vulnerabilities of women and girls in disasters. Institutional capacity building of officials in government, local government and civil Society Organizations to include women as a specific stakeholder group could be supportive as sustainable partnerships to enhance the women leadership in resilience building. Coordination among national and local governments’ institutions together with women’s Ministries is critical to provide guidance for practice of inclusive planning and reporting systems at local levels. Men and women working together can produce better results. Similarly, gender Focal Points needs to encourage significant engagement with the wide range of stakeholders from both development and humanitarian communities. The collaborated effort among DRR stakeholders through Ministry of education, plays a key role in providing support to women in capacity building for resilience building, aiming at increasing number of women in designing policies and strategies in mainstreaming of education for DRR into educational curricula and public awareness programs, and advocacy for disaster preparedness and prevention. It is necessary to ensure more gender-balanced representation within international and regional networks of experts on earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides as well as hydro-hazards. Investment in women’s institutions, and work with them to build strengths and capacities might be beneficial because they gain knowledge and skills that need to be recognized to enable them to participate fully in resilience building. Effective capacity building process that build women’s leadership and contribution to DRR, is required for the women to make vital contributions to prospective risk management and resilience building. Strengthening existing local knowledge and capacities of women in emergency management DRR and resilience building is crucial to bring about the change in local risk management and resilience building in their capacities. |
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