Gender and resilience: some questions answered

One year into the implementation of the Building Resilience and Adaptation to Climate Extremes and Disasters (BRACED) programme, a new working paper, Gender and Resilience: From theory to practice, takes stock of the progress that has been made in linking gender equality and resilience to extreme weather events and climate change. Charlotte Rye asks report author Virginie Le Masson what has been learned so far.

Charlotte Rye: What place does gender have in a climate resilience programme?

Virginie Le Masson: Understanding gender relations is at the heart of development activities that aim to enhance communities’ capacity to deal with climate change and weather extremes.

A gender lens helps understand the particularities of each context and shape programmes according to the local setting. Being attentive to gender equality is crucial to develop projects and policies that are socially inclusive for both women and men, and for any marginalised groups. 

To what extent can gender inequality hamper development projects focussing on disasters and climate risk?

Gender inequalities affect almost all societies worldwide. Discriminatory attitudes and norms prevent marginalised groups from accessing the necessary resources and support to adapt to climate extremes.

Women’s and girls’ rights are lagging in many of the countries that are most vulnerable to climate change. If half of the population remains excluded from decision-making processes, how can projects support the needs of all community members? 

In this new working paper, I draw on the experiences of projects funded under the BRACED programme, to better understand how NGOs have integrated a gender dimension into their activities.

What are the main findings from the case studies and your own research?

Obstacles that challenge the integration of gender equality in NGO projects include the following:

1. A lack of understanding among project workers of what gender equality means in theory and in practice: for example, is a gender approach not also about supporting men’s resilience for the sake of equality?
2. A resistance at the NGO level to adopt gender approaches, due to the complexity and sensitivity associated with communicating the topic externally.
3. An even greater resistance at the community and authority levels. As highlighted in the Myanmar case study, “to promote women’s empowerment means to increase people’s awareness of their rights. This encourages them to raise their voices […] and could therefore create social tensions between those who hold power and those who advocate a more equal share of power”.
4. A limited timeframe: what can realistically be achieved within the three-year BRACED lifespan in terms of fostering social transformations?
5. Constrained human resources characterised by high turnover in NGO staff and mostly male decision-makers in government.

How can practitioners and programme staff resolve these challenges?

The studies highlight simple but effective steps: engaging with communities through gender-specific groups allowed greater participation and trust among women, for example.

When project staff are aware and trained to take gender differences into consideration, efforts to support communities’ adaption to climate change are more inclusive. Having dedicated staff members working on social inclusion helps, too. This is best supported by a strong desire from the donor to promote gender equality as part of the programme.

What is the ultimate goal in linking gender and resilience in development programming?

Incorporating a gender perspective into resilience programmes illustrates how disasters primarily affect those who already suffer from social exclusion. So promoting social changes in turn tackles the root causes of vulnerability to climate extremes disasters,  and therefore builds resilience to them – which is BRACED’s ultimate goal.

In parallel, we must accept that fostering fundamental social and cultural changes is a long-term process, and that not all NGOs will agree or have the mandate to foster social transformation in the communities they work with.

Can linking gender and resilience really make a difference to gender inequality?

A project focusing on improving people’s access to risk information in the Sahel might indeed not tackle wider discriminatory gender norms. Nor will it resolve violence against women and girls. But inclusion remains a crucial aspect of building individual and community resilience to shocks and stresses.

We must promote gender equality and reaffirm women’s and girls’ rights in all activities, while accepting that sustainable changes in social norms might span generations.

Dr Virginie Le Masson is a gender expert within the Adaptation and Resilience and Social Protection teams at ODI.