2. www.genderetc.co.uk
Gender Responsive Resilience -
why GRR?
• The idea began in Bangladesh
– hence the tiger!
• This is not a pussy cat!
• Strength | Respect | Action
• Anger too
• The starting point is disaster
risk reduction (DRR)
• Resilience to shocks, stresses,
disturbances
Female Bengal Tiger
3. www.genderetc.co.uk
Gender Responsive Resilience -
why GRR?
• The idea began in Bangladesh
– hence the tiger!
• This is not a pussy cat!
• Strength | Respect | Action
• Anger too
• First the problem analysis
• Then the actions & solutions
• Focus on Bangladesh initiative
Female Bengal Tiger
5. www.genderetc.co.uk
Gender Responsive Resilience -
GRR
• Resilience - everywhere in the global policy
environment
• Highly contested and loosely understood notion
• This evening - resilience through a gender
responsive lens
• Gender? Responsive? Resilience?
• All need deconstructing
• And there is no ‘quick fix’ to achieving it
7. www.genderetc.co.uk
Gender Equality & Empowerment
• …the equal enjoyment by
females and males of all ages
and regardless of sexual
orientation of rights, socially
valued goods, opportunities,
resources and rewards (IASC
2006)
• “empowerment” implies a shift
in the power relations that
cause a particular social group
to suffer low social status or
systematic injustice (p. 3)
9. www.genderetc.co.uk
Practical needs; strategic interests
• Just ‘doing something for women’ is not the answer
• Immediate, “practical” survival needs – easier to
achieve, satisfy a need – don’t change things much
• Longer-term “strategic” interests – linked to
changing life circumstances, realizing human rights,
having more control over life, property rights,
political participation, safe spaces (IASC 2006: 3) – but
harder to realize
• This distinction may be understood in (some)
academic circles, it is poorly understood outside
10. www.genderetc.co.uk
Responsive Stop being so sensitive!
• Gender sensitive recognizes gender but doesn’t act
• Gender responsive recognizes gender and does
something about it
• Gender-responsive planned actions should integrate
measures for promoting gender equality and
women’s empowerment, foster women’s inclusion
and provide equal opportunities for women and men
to derive social and economic benefits (IUCN 2015)
• Responsive = reactive - something should change
Responsive
11. www.genderetc.co.uk
Resilience
• Bouncing back
• Bouncing back better
• Bouncing forward
• A bit too much bouncing going on here!
• It has got to include a power analysis –
Resilience to what? For whom?
Gender Responsive Resilience | Gender Responsive Resilience | Gender Responsive Resilience
Groan!
14. www.genderetc.co.uk
What does it look like through
a gendered lens? Barriers
1. Limited networking, organizing,
mobility / Inequalities in health &
healthcare, education, GBV
2. Reduced financial benefits and
economic opportunities
3. Responsibility but little authority/
control over natural/
environmental resources
4. Limited governance power,
participation
5. Little control of/ access or input to
technology or physical assets
1. Social/ Human
2. Financial/
Economic
3. Environmental/
Natural
4. Political
5. Technological/
Physical
15. www.genderetc.co.uk
So a gender unresponsive disaster
resilience lacks:
• Capacity of policy and decision makers, as well as
some practitioners, to understand gender equality
• Visibility, audibility and respect for women (and
girls and other gender minorities)
• An enabling environment to work collaboratively
across Ministries, departments, agencies and
organisations
• A solid evidence base (including SADD)
• Women’s meaningful participation, leadership
opportunities and rights
16. www.genderetc.co.uk
E.g. Ladder of citizen participation
(Sherry Arnstein 1969)
Degrees of
citizen power
• Citizen
control
• Delegated
power
• Partnership
Degrees of tokenism
• Placation
• Consultation
• Informing
Nonparticipation
• Therapy
• Manipulation
17. www.genderetc.co.uk
Degrees of citizen power
• Full managerial power
• Holding majority of seats
• Negotiate trade-offs
Degrees of tokenism
• Contribute without
decision-making power
• Having a voice (unheeded)
• Listening
Nonparticipation
• Fixing
• Educating
Degrees of
citizen power
• Citizen
control
• Delegated
power
• Partnership
Degrees of tokenism
• Placation
• Consultation
• Informing
Nonparticipation
• Therapy
• Manipulation
E.g. Ladder of citizen participation
(Sherry Arnstein 1969)
18. www.genderetc.co.uk
• Climbing hard just to
get to the same place
as dominant males
• Try climbing this in a
sari whilst holding a
child (or two)
• You need to be like a
man to climb it!
Degrees of
women’s power
• Women’s
control
• Delegated
power
• Partnership
Degrees of tokenism
• Placation
• Consultation
• Informing
Nonparticipation
• Therapy
• Manipulation
Ladder of women’s participation
19. www.genderetc.co.uk
• ‘Participation without
redistribution of power
is an empty and
frustrating process for
the powerless’
(Arnstein 1969: 216)
• Going beyond ‘empty
ritual’
Degrees of
women’s power
• Women’s
control
• Delegated
power
• Partnership
Degrees of tokenism
• Placation
• Consultation
• Informing
Nonparticipation
• Therapy
• Manipulation
Ladder of women’s participation
20. www.genderetc.co.uk
Where are the examples
from the top rungs?
We have plenty from
lower down
Degrees of citizen power
• Full managerial power
• Holding majority of
seats/ decision-making
influence
• Negotiate trade-offs
Degrees of
Women’s power
• Women’s
control
• Delegated
power
• Partnership
Degrees of tokenism
• Placation
• Consultation
• Informing
Nonparticipation
• Therapy
• Manipulation
24. www.genderetc.co.uk
Bangladesh example and context
Development of a new National Resilience Strategy
• Goal: Enhancing Bangladesh’s capacity to achieve
resilient and gender responsive human and
economic development through absorbing the
impacts of natural hazard and climate induced
shocks and stresses
• Aim: to make it fully gender responsive and risk
informed
• Constrained by budget and time so initially limited
in scope and partner Ministries, agencies and
organizations
25. www.genderetc.co.uk
Initiative led by
• Ministry of Disaster Management & Relief
• Ministry of Women & Children Affairs
• Local Government Engineering Department
• UN Women
• UNDP
• UNOPS (Office for Project Services)
• Development Partners: Government of Bangladesh,
DFID, SIDA
26. www.genderetc.co.uk
Bangladesh context
• A lot of good gender work done already but…
• DM/DRR people do not do gender well and lack
understanding of engineering realities
• Engineering/Infrastructure people are not risk
informed and do not do gender well (or at all)
• Gender/Women’s machineries do not do DM/DRR
well or understand engineering realities, or equality
• This initiative is as much about how to do things
as it is about what to do
27. www.genderetc.co.uk
Tentative outputs/outcomes for
Bangladesh
1. Improved capacities for risk-informed and gender-responsive
disaster and development planning
2. Upgraded functional capacity at national and local levels to
address recurrent and mega disasters in a gender-responsive way
3. Improved capacity of public institutions to achieve resilience
outcomes through designing and constructing risk-informed and
gender-responsive infrastructure systems
4. Enhanced women’s leadership capacities for gender-responsive
disaster management decisions, investments and policies
5. Strengthened community preparedness for effective response to
and recovery from recurrent and mega shocks
28. www.genderetc.co.uk
Doing it differently; doing it better
• This aims to be a new way of doing things, not
business as usual
• A new strategic direction for national resilience that
is gender responsive and risk informed
• Its scope is ‘all of society’ and ‘all of government’
through inclusive and collaborative, ‘matrix’ working
• Agree protocols
• Build capacity
• Create an evidence base
30. www.genderetc.co.uk
No more silos
• Top down and
bottom up
• Across government,
departments,
agencies – all of
society approach
• Monitoring,
evaluation and
gender screening
• Capacity building
Gender equality
InfrastructureDM/DRR
31. www.genderetc.co.uk
Build women’s leadership
Degrees of
women’s power
• Women’s
control
• Delegated
power
• Partnership
Rani Mondal (centre) and fellow
crab farmers, who work on the
Bay of Bengal. Photograph: Anna
Ridout. The Guardian
35. www.genderetc.co.uk
From gender indifference to
gender responsiveness
• The Bangladesh initiative marks a step change in
attitudes to and actions on gender
• State level recognition for rethinking gender is key
• Appropriate checks and monitoring are crucial to
maintaining this momentum
•Watch this – gender responsive – space
GRR!
36. www.genderetc.co.uk
Sources
• Arnstein, Sherry R. 1969 A Ladder Of Citizen
Participation, Journal of the American Institute
of Planners, 35 (4): 216-224
• DFID
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachmen
t_data/file/186874/defining-disaster-resilience-approach-paper.pdf
• IASC 2006 Women, Girls Boys & Men Different
Needs – Equal Opportunities, IASC Handbook
for Gender equality in Humanitarian Action
https://interagencystandingcommittee.org/system/files/legacy_files/I
ASC%20Gender%20Handbook%20%28Feb%202007%29.pdf
• IUCN http://genderandenvironment.org/2015/08/stop-being-so-
sensitive-the-shift-from-gender-sensitive-to-gender-responsive-
action/
• Lorde, Audre 1984 “The master’s tools will not
dismantle the master’s house” in Sister
Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre
Lorde, Trumansburg, NJ: Crossing Press, pp
110-13
• https://krapooarboricole.files.wordpr
ess.com/2008/01/je-participe.jpg
• http://www.clker.com/cliparts/0/3/2/
9/1216180574640531462jonata_Wre
nch.svg.hi.png
• https://www.emaze.com/@ACWZITF
F/gender-equality
• https://www.pinterest.com/pin/4415
63938439313781/
• https://www.pinterest.com/pin/4579
59855834070229/
• https://www.shutterstock.com/searc
h/gender+equality?language=en
• http://www.taylormarsh.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/07/RainbowFl
agImHumanViaWipeOutHomophobia
FB.jpg
• https://www.theguardian.com/global
-
development/2015/sep/29/banglade
sh-women-taking-charge-from-
grassroots-to-government
• http://www.voanews.com/english/20
05-in-Review.cfm
