8. Gender in Emergencies Do’s and Don’ts
- Use a gender analysis to inform understanding of the context and the capacities, strengths, needs and concerns of the women, girls, boys and men in the population.
- Ensure that the collection, analysis and reporting of data and information is broken down by sex and age.
- Collect data from women, girls, boys and men.
- Ensure that the data from women is collected by women.
- Analyse how the crisis affects women, girls, boys and men differently.
- If you cannot get quantitative information in the first hours of a response, record the sex and age of key informants who are providing you with information on the situation, and aim for a broad demographic of informants. Other sources could include available programming information, census data, health statistics and household survey data.
- Ensure Sectoral Minimum Commitments are integrated within all programming.
- Develop targeted actions based on the outcomes of the rapid gender analysis to design or adapt services to meet the different needs of women, girls, boys and men.
- Make sure that women, girls, boys and men have equal access to programmes and services.
- Make sure that women, girls, boys and men participate equally in assessments, decision making and response activities.
- Ensure active efforts are undertaken to increase women’s voice, participation and leadership across the sectors and throughout the response.
- Train women and men equally. Provide women and men equal benefits or pay for equal work. Understand the gender dynamics to avoid increasing the burden of work for women and girls.
- Ensure GBV mitigation measures are included within all sectoral programmes.
- Develop targeted GBV prevention, mitigation and response initiatives based on the context and in line with CARE’s GBV Framework.
- Coordinate actions with all partners in the response.
- Ensure CARE teams are gender balanced and where relevant to the context are representative of the diversity within the population, e.g. based on religion, ethnicity, cast etc.
- Ensure each emergency sector team has appointed someone to focus on gender, even when there is someone in a specific Gender in Emergencies role.
- Monitor intended and unintended effects of the response on women, girls, boys and men.
- Ensure there is a responsive, safe, and equally accessible accountability mechanism in place, taking into account how people prefer to engage, receive, access and provide information based on gender, age, disability, literacy levels and other diversity factors.
- Ensure proposals, project plans and reports include specific gender plans, goals, indicators and progress, and are continuously monitored against CARE’s Gender Marker.
- Actively ensure staff and partners are accountable to gender equality goals, with specific responsibilities being included in TORs.
- Ensure all staff, partners and volunteers are trained and aware of their individual and collective responsibilities to prevent sexual exploitation and abuse.
- Staff, partners and volunteers are aware of the GBV referrals system and have the skills to respond to a disclosure of GBV in a safe and confidential manner, in line with the survivor centered approach by ensuring information on available medical, legal, psychosocial and protection support is made accessible to survivors.
- Forget that women, girls, boys and men are all at risk of GBV and sexual exploitation and abuse. While women and girls are disproportionately impacted by disasters and by GBV, men and boys can also be survivors/victims.
- Favour men in livelihood programmes. This could further impoverish women. Do not provide unequal pay or working conditions based on gender.
- Fail to consider gender in all sectors of the response. Doing so can have unintended negative consequences for the population, particularly at-risk groups and can increase risks for GBV e.g. poor camp design can increase the risks of GBV, especially for individuals and groups who were not consulted as part of the design process.
- Forget that at the start of your emergency response, the gender analysis will not be perfect, so you may need to adapt your strategy and project design as your analysis improves. It is important to conduct multiple gender analysis at different stages of the response.
- Forget that PSEA is everyone’s responsibility including all staff, partners and volunteers.
For some quick tips and reflections from a deployable GiE Specialist visit this video link