Reframing security and promoting women’s leadership

This post is written by Alejandra Mora Mora, Executive Secretary, Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM), Organization of American States (OAS)

• **The problem: **Overlooking women limits the effectiveness and scope of disaster preparedness, mitigation and recovery plans and efforts.
• Why it matters: Women and girls are among the most vulnerable groups in situations of disaster and have the least economic resilience to rebound in the aftermath.
• The solution: States should expand their understanding of security to better encompass the needs of women and girls from an intersectional perspective and ensure parity in women’s leadership in these crisis situations.

States should proactively forefront women’s participation and leadership at the decision-making levels in disaster and humanitarian work to integrate gender considerations more effectively and sustainably.

In 2015, the United Nations’ Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) calculated that 87% of disasters had been climate-related. Since then, the incidence of “natural” disasters and other climate-related events has exponentially increased and experts predict that they will continue to increase over the coming years, with catastrophic consequences for small island, coastal, drought-prone, and impoverished areas of the world.

As the leading hemispheric forum for policymaking on women’s human rights and gender equality, the Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM) has repeatedly emphasised that neither natural disasters, nor the policies put in place to prevent, mitigate, or address them, are gender neutral. In disaster situations, women and girls in displacement are at greater risk for unwanted pregnancy, gender-based violence, STIs and maternal morbidity and mortality.

"Women’s time is now, and that requires the incorporation of their knowledge and skills to give decisions the complexity and comprehensiveness that they deserve."

In this context, the CIM strongly advocates that national and regional disaster plans, along with preparedness, mitigation, and recovery efforts, integrate a gender and rights-based perspective in order to be fully effective.

This perspective should also pay particular attention to the intersectional vulnerabilities of women who are disabled, elderly, transgender, migrant, or that are part of any other community that is disproportionately affected by natural disasters and climate degradation. Women’s leadership is crucial to an effective response that takes into account the differentiated needs of women and girls in different situations (e.g. earthquakes in Haiti, floods in Peru, COVID-19).

Rethinking gender

Traditionally, the concept of security has been limited to matters of national security and defence or public security and the control of criminality, understood and addressed as two separate and unrelated areas. This understanding overlooks other areas of concern that disproportionately impact women’s safety such as environmental degradation and natural disasters, migration and displacement, transnational organised crime, use of small arms, high levels of homicide, drug trafficking, human trafficking, gender and racial violence and discrimination, and inequality and extreme poverty, among others.

According to the United Nations, human security goes beyond the notion of state or public security by recognising the links between peace, development, and human rights. It calls for comprehensive, people-centered, context-specific, and prevention-oriented responses. This concept bridges the gap in traditional understandings of security (external threats, national borders, crime-prevention, and law enforcement) that are relevant to the state but fall short in addressing the specific security challenges and priorities of women and girls.

A growing body of evidence shows that women’s differential styles of leadership may make them more effective managers of different types of crises and conflict, maximising resilience, reducing risk and improving management and mitigation efforts, including in the context of natural disasters. Taking this more holistic view of security into account, the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda includes women's participation and leadership in security matters as a fundamental pillar (the other pillars include protection, prevention, and relief and recovery).

Women’s leadership, and the deconstruction of unequal structures and institutions that exclude them, are essential steps in ensuring an appropriate and effective response to all security issues, including natural disasters. Similarly, more effort is needed in capacity-building for women as humanitarian leaders and crisis managers and investing in women as critical agents in advancing women’s rights and gender equality in disaster situations.

The time for change is now

Women’s time is now, and that requires the incorporation of their knowledge and skills to give decisions the complexity and comprehensiveness that they deserve. Promoting the leadership of women from diverse social, racial, ethnic, and other groups in decision-making in the social, political, economic, legal, and cultural spheres promises better overall outcomes for democracy, security, and development.

The CIM’s work focuses on putting in place more gender-based strategies to effectively respond to the needs of women and girls in humanitarian and disaster situations, and on fostering and supporting women’s leadership as the most effective way to ensure that this happens. Women’s agency and leadership in disaster planning, relief, and recovery efforts and humanitarian assistance allows for a multiplier effect, because of the various key roles that women play in the public and private spheres – and most critically within the care economy. — Alejandra Mora Mora

👋 You can create a post like this one! Share your thoughts with a community of public servants. Learn more

(Picture credit: Unsplash)