Accelerating Gender-Responsive Disaster Management with Sendai Gender Action Plan

The climate crisis has made disaster impacts much worse than before. In 2015, the Sendai Framework was established to call for collaborative actions across stakeholders to reduce disaster risk and life losses. However, it is also crucial to recognize that disasters have gendered impacts. In March 2024, the UNDRR published the Sendai Gender Action Plan to accelerate gender-responsive disaster risk reduction efforts.

The Issues

Understanding disaster risks through a gender-responsive lens means recognizing how disasters impact people differently. Studies cited in the World Bank’s report found that in many settings, natural disasters lower women’s life expectancy more than men’s by directly causing women’s deaths and exacerbating their living and economic conditions. The report also explored how women’s limited access to risk information and lack of agency are leading causes of this discrepancy.

Women and people of diverse genders often suffer more severe impacts, yet data can be difficult to obtain, especially at local levels. As a result, national regulations and policies are often made without considering gender-specific data. However, even when the data are available, many government officials and other actors in the field lack the necessary capacities to process them.

Gender-responsive disaster risk reduction must include gender equality as the objective of national legislative and policy frameworks. This is particularly important to enable clear roles and responsibilities and secure sufficient budget and investment for implementation, monitoring, and evaluation.

Furthermore, addressing gender barriers in early warning systems, prioritizing gender equality in recovery programs, and preventing the risk of gender-based violence are also crucial.

The Sendai Gender Action Plan

The Sendai Gender Action Plan aims to accelerate the implementation of the Sendai Framework by increasing resource allocations, activities, and impacts of gender-responsive disaster risk reduction. By 2030, the framework also plans to decrease gender-related disaster risk substantially.

The framework has nine objectives related to the Sendai Framework’s four priorities. The objectives are to:

Increase the availability of sex, age, income, and disability disaggregated data and qualitative information on gender and disaster risk.
Use gender analysis to generate and apply disaster risk knowledge in decision-making.
Mainstream gender equality across laws, policies, strategies, plans, and institutions for disaster risk reduction, informed by relevant international treaties and agreements.
Increase meaningful participation and empowerment of women and gender stakeholders in disaster risk governance.
Mainstream gender equality criteria into risk-informed development and disaster risk reduction investments.
Increase funding allocations and improve access to financing for disaster risk reduction initiatives that advance gender equality.
Implement gender-responsive and inclusive end-to-end multi-hazard early warning systems and anticipatory action.
Plan for and invest in gender-responsive disaster recovery, rehabilitation, and reconstruction.
Ensure access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights, and prevention and response to gender-based violence in the context of disasters.

In line with the main framework, the Sendai Gender Action Plan also emphasizes collaboration between governments and women-focused organizations. Therefore, it also provides 33 recommended actions for stakeholders at national and local levels that promote gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls in disaster risk reduction.

Collaboration Is Crucial

The commitment and actions to implement gender-responsive disaster risk reduction have never been more crucial. The Sendai Gender Action Plan offers an inclusive approach to protecting everyone against the impacts of disasters, especially women and people of diverse genders who are disproportionately impacted during crises.

Therefore, implementing the Sendai Gender Action Plan requires multi-stakeholder participation, especially in disaster risk reduction and gender inequality fields. Governments at national and local levels must provide frameworks and budget allocations for gender-responsive disaster risk reduction. Meanwhile, women’s organizations and other gender and social inclusion stakeholders must also advocate and work towards the realization of inclusive and gender-responsive disaster management.
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Editor: Nazalea Kusuma

Kresentia Madina

Reporter at Green Network Asia | Website | + posts

Madina is the Assistant Manager of Stakeholder Engagement at Green Network Asia. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English Studies from Universitas Indonesia. As part of the GNA In-House Team, she supports the organization's multi-stakeholder engagement across international organizations, governments, businesses, civil society, and grassroots communities through digital publications, events, capacity building, and research.