H Report of a Workshop on Coordinating Regional Capacity Building on Gender Responsive Humanitarian Action in Asia-Pacific

Background and Rationale for Workshop

1. 
   Addressing gender equality during a humanitarian crisis means planning and implementing programming to fully take into account the specific needs of men and women, boys and girls in a community. In spite of an increased awareness of the importance of gender equality within the humanitarian community, there is a growing body of evidence indicating that it is still inadequately and inconsistently integrated within sectoral programme cycles in humanitarian responses. Globally there have been efforts to address this.
   

2. 
   In the Asia Pacific region, a number of initiatives are in place with the specific aim of enhancing awareness of gender equality issues and more effectively mainstreaming gender into humanitarian action. Some of these initiatives include the deployment of a GenCap Adviser within OCHA, an Inter-agency Regional Emergency Gender-Based Violence (REGA) Adviser hosted by UNFPA and coverage of gender within the Regional IASC Cross-Cutting Issues Working Group to develop minimum deliverables and practical guidance for the Asia-Pacific Region.
   

3. 
   There have also been a variety of training initiatives and workshops, such as the 2011 inter-agency UNFPA, UNHCR, UNICEF “Building capacity to respond to GBV in emergencies” project, UNFPA’s 2013 and 2014 ‘GBV in Emergencies Workshop’, the November 2014 Asian Disaster Preparedness Center and Wilton Park’s roundtable on ‘Maximising a Gender-Inclusive Approach’ and UNHCR and OCHA’s November 2014 workshop on ‘Integrating a People-Centred Approach’.
   

4. 
   Despite these increased efforts, there remains a lack of coherence around such activities. As a consequence, there is a risk of failing to optimize the significant expertise and experience within the Asia Pacific region, which could advance this work collectively. This workshop has been convened to discuss how the humanitarian community can better coordinate to achieve greater gender equality in humanitarian action.
   

Objectives of the Workshop

• 
  To provide an initial forum for regional partners involved in gender equality and gender mainstreaming in humanitarian action to meet and exchange information.
  
• 
  To identify priority areas and opportunities for 2015-2016 for promoting gender equality and gender mainstreaming in humanitarian action in the region.
  
• 
  To map out current and planned activities for 2015-2016 for gender mainstreaming/capacity building initiatives in humanitarian action, and identify gaps
  
• 
  To recommend next steps to improve coordination on gender in humanitarian action at the regional level, including interface with other related regional fora, such as the Cross Cutting issues sub-working group.
  
• 
  To use lessons learned to inform future development of coordinated regional capacity building.
  

Day 1:

5. 
   The meeting was opened by welcoming comments from Oliver Lacey-Hall, Head of UN OCHA Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific and Ramanathan Balakrishnan, Deputy Regional Director, UN Women for Asia and the Pacific, speaking on behalf of Regional Director, Roberta Clark. Oliver commented that by March 2015, OCHA hopes to have a clear plan of action in place to strengthen gender mainstreaming in country planning. He encouraged the participants to resist creating further volumes of guidance and to focus instead on identifying or developing practical tools to assist in achieving this goal. This guidance needs to be integrated into existing policies and procedures rather than being presented as a separate stream. He also urged the group to reflect on the specific needs of populations in conflict affected environments as advocacy tends to focus more on those affected by natural disasters. He also referred to the need to ensure that gender considerations are fully integrated into the lead-up to the World Humanitarian Summit in May 2016.
   

6. 
   Ramanathan spoke of the tendency to focus on women as victims in situations of conflict or disaster rather than as agents of change and that emergency responses tend to reinforce existing patriarchal systems. He also noted that a perceived lack of gender expertise can hamper the ability of individual agencies to put mainstreaming into practice and encouraged participants to form a community of practice and to operationalize themselves as a group. He emphasized that it is not about UN Women doing the work in an operational sense but about working strategically within existing systems to “engender humanitarian action”. He lamented the fact that while we have strong language on gender we have not yet achieved strong implementation.
   

7. 
   The facilitator, Sarah Martin, and Christine Mougne, Regional Gender Adviser for OCHA and UN Women, went on to review the objectives of the workshop and asked the participants to introduce each other and explain why they thought a gendered approach was essential to humanitarian response.
   

8. 
   Blerta Aliko, UN Women Gender and Humanitarian Advisor, opened the first session by presenting an overview of activities being undertaken at the global level by UN Women. She referred to the Secretary-General’s statement on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in Natural Disasters, to the partnership between UN Women and OCHA, and to the post 2015 Disaster Risk Reduction framework at the World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction. She noted that regrettably the latter framework was lacking gender language and that at this stage it is too late to add anything. As noted by Oliver, we need to be proactive and ensure coordinated action in the lead up to the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit to make optimum use of the gender lens.
   

9. 
   Blerta also encouraged colleagues in the Asia-Pacific region to push harder to address gender in the humanitarian-development divide. She noted that UN Women is not included as a full member in the Interagency Standing Committee at the global level and that they must lobby through the existing members. She emphasized the need for accountability and the fact that seven years after its establishment, there has not yet been a review of the implementation and impact of IASC’s policy and operational commitments to gender equality.
   

10. 
    Samantha Orr, Humanitarian Affairs Officer, OCHA ROAP, speaking on behalf of Njoki Kinjanjui, OCHA Senior Gender Advisor, spoke about OCHA’s activities to advance an understanding of gender equality. OCHA is looking at its organizational culture to identify gender-sensitive practices. An audit is currently being undertaken to see what has been accomplished and how gender can be better incorporated. A gender advisor will be assigned to the World Humanitarian Summit to ensure that gender is taken into account.
    

11. 
    Devanna de la Puente, the inter-agency Regional Gender Based Violence Advisor, IASC GBV AoR hosted by UNFPA in Asia Pacific region, introduced the second session by presenting an overview of the Asia Pacific region and lessons learned from responding to humanitarian crises in Philippines, Myanmar, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the Pacific Islands. She noted that the Asia Pacific region is among the most disaster prone region with ongoing protracted crises, yet few countries are clusterised thus humanitarian response takes place in different structures. There is a great divide between humanitarian and development, but Gender and GBV cuts across the humanitarian-development gap. There are many pre-existing gender inequalities in the region including deeply rooted social norms that discriminate primarily against women and girls, and a sensitivity to discussing these with government counterparts, particularly related to GBV in conflict situations. Gender and GBV have limited prioritization in emergencies as life-saving interventions and there is limited capacity to provide multi-sectoral services to survivors, At the same time, Asia-Pacific also has strong women’s organizations and civil society as well as many existing policies, which are not necessarily reflected in a humanitarian response. There are lessons learned from previous emergencies which we need to build from and promote south to south collaboration. She concluded with a short overview of resources available in the region.
    

12. 
    This was followed by a series of presentations on the challenges and opportunities to incorporate gender into humanitarian response in Asia. Hadia Nusrat, Interagency Gender Equality Adviser presented an overview of the situation in Pakistan. She noted poor documentation and the lack of a repository for best practices, a disruption in funding to women’s organizations, and a high turnover in staffing as key weaknesses. She remarked that there is a lack of institutional support for gender and that inequality is seen as a chronic problem and unrelated to humanitarian response. She mentioned that as the OCHA emergency preparedness and response processes in Pakistan function like clockwork, having her position placed in their office provides a good opportunity to incorporate gender considerations. The Gender and Child Cell of the national Disaster Management Department was strengthened, but the two years of funding was not sufficient to let the bureaucracy function.
    

13. 
    Rowena Dacsig, Gender Focal Point UN OCHA Manila, presented a report on the Philippines. The weaknesses included the lack of a framework for gender in humanitarian response, poor coordination in gender organizations, lack of prioritization, confusing government structures, and the need for more advocacy. Nevertheless, in the Philippines the laws are strong, there are focal points for gender in the government line agencies, there is money for gender and development and strong NGOs so there are many opportunities for improvement.
    

14. 
    Maria Caterina Ciampi, Senior Inter-Agency Gender Adviser, Myanmar, Jean D’Cunha, Senior Gender Adviser, Myanmar and Zaw Min Htet, Field Coordination Officer, OCHA added examples from Myanmar including the presence of a Gender theme group and a national strategic plan on the involvement of women. Civil society and the UN are conducting a mapping of all the humanitarian areas. They mentioned that there is sex and age disaggregated data in 60% of the crisis-affected areas but this is not yet used for programming. There are no official focal points in sectors, no response to PSEA in place, but there is a lot of good will. They have just begun the gender marker process.
    

15. 
    After some discussion of issues raised in the country presentations, participants broke into three small working groups to identify the challenges and gaps in the region in terms of engendering humanitarian action. The key issues raised are summarized below.
    

16. 
    Lack of accountability: there is no common accountability framework to measure progress and steps forward. Gender should not be seen as an “optional” issue. While it is included in the IASC policy statement, there are no evident consequences for failure to implement. For example, accountability for promoting gender equality rarely appears in job descriptions or performance assessments. There needs to be incentives and disincentives. Lack of an enabling environment. How do we make sure that our senior management is engaged and involved? There is a lack of focus and prioritization on gender within senior humanitarian leadership and decision makers (which includes the government). Furthermore, there is a problem of organizational territorialism. No single agency is responsible and yet all should be involved in one capacity or another, but there is no suitable mechanism to ensure proactive and coordinated response.
    

17. 
    Funding and the Divide between Humanitarian and Development Activities: The funding for humanitarian and development activities come from separate sources, and are administered separately, making it difficult to follow through activities or issues that should otherwise flow through from one to the other. There are also insufficient financial as well as human resources devoted to the gender sector. Finally, in humanitarian responses, money flows initially, but as funding declines, the momentum slows down and prioritization drops. Funding is needed over a sufficiently long period of time to allow for real and sustainable change to occur, based on a continuum between humanitarian and development activities. The divide between humanitarian and development activities is not just a funding issue, however, but also a conceptual and organizational divide that is very difficult to bridge. The gap has long been recognized and efforts are being made to address it, especially in terms of the continuation of humanitarian action in the context of long term development, and in particular within the Asia-Pacific region which faces ongoing disasters for which the humanitarian-development line is very thin.
    

18. 
    Lack of institutional mandate for gender at all levels in local governments, regional governments, national levels, and INGOs. There is also a limited capacity of government and other humanitarian actors. While there is clearly a link between gender and humanitarian response, humanitarian actors tend to operate in vertical silos, without enough emphasis on making use of the gender lens. There is also a high turnover of humanitarian staff, especially in emergencies. Even in an L3 situation, international humanitarian staff do not place emphasis of building the capacity of their national colleagues or governments counterparts. Capacity building efforts tend to focus on civil society and our own agencies when we should also be focusing on supporting government. There has been insufficient research on what has worked in motivating governments and we need to start documenting what works. There are good practices coming out of Pakistan, the Philippines and India and we are trying to put them into practice.
    

19. 
    Need for stronger women’s leadership in all areas – including humanitarian leadership. We need a balance of both male and female leadership. Having more female leadership at the ground level as well as in the humanitarian leadership. At the same time there needs to be more male representation in the area of gender work so that it is not perceived as being a woman’s role.
    

20. 
    Lack of coordination to maximize existing efforts. A number of networks are already in place, particularly for gender in development, yet there remains a disconnect with humanitarian related networks. There needs to be a comprehensive picture of where capacities exist in the region and within countries so we can understand where the gaps are. Lack of identification of key people: who is already working on what and where on gender? Having an understanding of what exists regionally is important, to provide a basis for finding synergies between work of gender in development and gender in humanitarian action, including GBV. Where can you go for support? There needs to be clarity and greater uniformity on the role of the gender focal point. There is a need to establish a robust community of practice to assist in accessing tools and guidelines and sharing best practices. There is also a need to clarify the language that we use. Gender is a loaded term and we need to have clarification and common understanding behind the terms we use. It is often assumed to be synonymous with women. Gender fatigue occurs in both the humanitarian and development sectors as we endeavor to create a sense of value and prioritization of gender in everything we do.
    

21. 
    Lack of Sex and Age disaggregated data and the limited use of certain data: Finally, despite the emphasis on the critical importance of SADD, in many situations data are not gathered at all, while in others there is data but a lack of analytical capacity or understanding of how best to make use of it. There is also frequently a lack of a central depository for storing the data. Thus even if data are available they are often not accessible to the whole humanitarian community.
    

22. 
    There was a consensus amongst participants that the second and third focus group sessions should be combined, to give more time for discussion within the groups, and later in plenary. The three small working groups proceeded to focus on needs, as well as stakeholders, partnerships and opportunities.
    

23. 
    Stakeholders. While not exhaustive, one of the working groups produced a comprehensive list that provides an excellent initial basis for strategic outreach
    

• 
  UN Agencies: OCHA, UN Women, UNHCR, WFP, UNICEF, UNFPA, IOM, UNDP, UN Habitat, ISDR, ESCAP
  
• 
  INGOs: Oxfam, World Vision, CARE, SCI, Plan International, Action Aid, IRC , Handicap International, Help Age
  
• 
  Civil Society Organizations: major women’s groups and networks (to identify existing regional networks)
  
• 
  Red Cross Red Crescent Movement: IFRC, ICRC, National Societies
  
• 
  Regional Institutions: Asia Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC), Asia Development Bank (ADB), Asian Disaster Reduction and Response Network (ADRRN), ASEAN Humanitarian Assistance Centre, Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), World Bank, South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), Pacific Island Forum
  
• 
  Regional Networks: Inte-Agency Standing Committee, Asia Pacific Women’s Watch, ESCAP Gender Group, ODA-GAD, UN Women Peace and Security, UNiTE, UN Girls Education Initiative (UNGEI), UN Women Civil Regional Society Advisory Board, International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA), Regional DRR Network, UN Thematic on DRM (OCHA and UNDP, UNDP), Civil Society Gender Network
  
• 
  Academic: University of Queensland, East West Centre, Tata Institute of Social Sciences
  
• 
  Donors: USAID, ECHO, DFAT, DFID, SIDA, Norwegian, Danish, JICA
  
• 
  Regional Technical Capacity:Inter-Agency Regional GenCapAdviser, Interagency Regional GBV in Emergencies Adviser (REGA) (GBViE), dedicated regional gender advisers
  

24. 
    Needs. As discussed under challenges, there was broad consensus on the need for an accountability framework to support mainstreaming and adequate inclusion of gender equality in humanitarian action. A proposal was made to include a small number of key non-negotiable elements as minimum standards for clusters/sectors (notably for Shelter, Food Security, WASH, Health, Livelihoods and Protection)
    

• 
  Sex and Age Disaggregated Data (SADD)
  
• 
  Gender equality systematically integrated into coordination (as part of life-saving)
  
• 
  Institutionalization of gender in emergencies in all agencies
  
• 
  Capacity building mapping (commonality and distinctions) – how it is linked to other areas such as protection, GBV, AAP.
  

25. 
    Agreement was reached with regard to the proposed establishment of an informal time-bound group at the regional level on Gender in Humanitarian Action, under the overall IASC regional network, and with potential links to the Gender theme group (ESCAP); the action plan will have clear deliverables, with regular updates on progress made. Its development will have inputs from global, regional and country colleagues participating in this initiative, but with clear regional focus for the Asia Pacific region.
    

26. 
    More effective communication flow was also identified as a need – both “upstream” and “downstream” between HQ, RO and CO and it was proposed that a data repository on GiHA, including GBV, should be established. Identifying the key gender and GBV needs in the region could provide the basis for a more targeted advocacy strategy by, for example, issuing periodic “snapshots” to reflect the specific concerns, achievements and challenges of the Asia-Pacific Region.
    

27. 
    With regard to the challenge regarding the Humanitarian- Development divide, there is a need to bring together the two streams through a coordinated approach by working with both areas via UNDG and IASC. It was suggested that the Regional Gender Adviser (UN Women/OCHA) should participate in key meetings of both to identify opportunities and synergies. Also a need to engage with the regional Gender theme group (ESCAP/ UN Women), including the regional group on women peace and security and the UNiTE campaign on ending violence against women, to identify areas of collaboration and how best bring in the humanitarian into their work plan. Similarly it was discussed that head of agencies representing at both UNDG and IASC regional network should be encouraged to become champions, to bridge the divide and represent gender in humanitarian issues at both development and regional forums. Further work is required to identify I/NGOs regional networks related to gender and humanitarian for greater inclusion of non- UN actors.
    

28. 
    A number of significant opportunities for engendering humanitarian action in the region were identified, including: regional IASC initiatives, such as the WFP/OCHA preparedness project and preparedness working group, influencing the ongoing Humanitarian programme cycles in country through the strategic response plans (SRP), ASEAN and UN partnership on disaster management. Potential cooperation with the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) through its NDMO networks, current processes for regional consultations for the World Humanitarian Summit, upcoming consultations for the Pacific and for South and Central Asia in 2015, Global forum on DRR post 2015 in Senai next year, Regional inputs to the CSW 2015, etc. Reference was also made to the UNFPA regional capacity building initiative on GBV in Emergencies through its pilot regional training, the ongoing work of the IASC GBV AoR with existing Regional GBV Advisor (REGA) for the next two years, and the World Vision regional training of Humanitarian Advisors.
    

29. 
    The five priorities for action identified during the final session of the meeting were: Accountability, Advocacy, Capacity-Building, bridging the gap between Development and Humanitarian discourse, and Coordination between Gender Equality and GBV AoR.
    

30. 
    Accountability: with regard to accountability, the following key points were considered key
    

• 
  adherence to minimum standards for clusters/sectors, and existing tools;
  
• 
  commitment in terms of resources allocated (institutionalization)
  
• 
  inter-cluster coordination – SRP
  
• 
  accountability of government and civil society
  
• 
  Minimum commitments to be embedded in TORs and PERs of Senior Managers
  
• 
  Regional Directors to be encouraged to commit to producing fully engendered SRPs, including SADD, in 2-3 countries in region in 2015
  

31. 
    Advocacy: It was agreed that the key strategic goal in terms of advocacy should be the World Humanitarian Summit in 2016 and that we should target the South/Central Asia and Pacific Regional Consultations in 2015 by getting onto the steering committees, participating in online forums, working with NGOs and local groups to ensure that gender equality is part of the discussions and the final outputs (text) coming out of the Regional Consultations and thence into the WHS.
    

32. 
    Capacity Building: It was agreed that the mapping process proposed by the Regional Gender Adviser should be supported and presented to the March IASC regional network Directors meeting as a means to identify gaps and to illustrate the proposed plan of action. A three-tier approach is envisaged focusing on i) CSO Advisory Board, ii) INGOs and iii) Gender machineries in DRR (usual actors NGO, Government and clusters – across the scope).
    

33. 
    Bridging the Divide between Humanitarian and Development Discourse: It was agreed that the Regional Gender Adviser should establish a link with the UNDG Gender in Development Group through the UN Women Regional Director as a first step to identify areas of collaboration and coordination between the GiHA time bound group and the UNDG gender group, also seek the support both UN Women and UN OCHA Regional Directors to provide a bridge between UNDG and IASC.
    

34. 
    Coordination between Gender and GBV: Regional Gender Adviser and REGA will ensure close coordination and collaboration to promote synergies and maximize the expertise available for Gender and GBV, including cooperation with other protection partners in the region. It was also agreed that they would link up with donors through the ESCAP Gender Theme group, as possible, to promote advocacy efforts related to gender and GBV in humanitarian action, both the Regional Gender Adviser and REGA will support flow of communication and mobilization of technical support across the global gender and GBV thematic groups by region and country.
    

35. 
    In conclusion, participants expressed their satisfaction at having had the opportunity to gain a greater understanding of the current capacities and initiatives in the region related to gender in humanitarian action, as well as of what is required in order to better integrate gender equality in humanitarian programme cycles. There was strong support for the priority areas identified for promoting gender in humanitarian action in the region and for the establishment of a time-bound ad-hoc working group on gender in humanitarian action to develop a Plan of Action for Coordinating Regional Capacity-Building on Gender-Responsive Humanitarian Action in the Asia-Pacific. It was agreed that a meeting report will be shared by 20 December 2014, and an action plan will be drafted by end January 2015. Communication will follow up to map current capacities and planned activities, to include organisations that were unable to attend, as a basis for developing the initial plan. A follow-up meeting will be planned for January which will discuss progress and the way forward. The action plan and outcomes of the meetings of the ad hoc group will be presented at the March IASC Regional network Directors meeting for endorsement.
    

8.30 – 09.00 Arrival and Registration of participants

Tuesday 9 December 2014

Annex 2. PARTICIPANTS:

	Name	Title	Agency	E-mail
1	Alf Blikberg	Programme Officer, Trust Fund for Tsunami, Disaster and Climate Preparedness	Information and Communications Technology and Disaster Risk Reduction Division (IDD), UNESCAP	blikberg@un.org
2	Blerta Aliko	Gender and Humanitarian Advisor	UN Women HQ	blerta.aliko@unwomen.org
3	Cecilia Aipira	Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction Policy Advisor	UN Women, Fiji Office	cecilia.aipira@unwomen.org
4	Christine Mougne	Reg. Gender Adviser UN Women/ OCHA	UN Women ROAP	Christine.mougne@unwomen.org
5	Christopher Foulkes	Regional Resource Mobilization Officer	IOM	cfoulkes@iom.int
6	Daria Santoni	Executive Assistant to Regional Director	UNHCR	santoni@unhcr.org
7	Devanna de la Puente	Inter-Agency Regional Emergency GBV Adviser (REGA)	IASC, UNFPA	delapuenteforte@unfpa.org
8	Hadia Nusrat	Interagency Gender Equality Advisor for Humanitarian Country Team	UN Women, Pakistan	hadia.nusrat@unwomen.org
9	Jean D'Cunha	Senior Gender Advisor	Office of the United Nations Resident Coordinator – Myanmar	jean.dcunha@one.un.org
10	Juncal Plazaola	Programme Analyst, Technical Division on Violence against Women and Girls	UNFPA	Plazaola-castano@unfpa.org;
11	Maria Caterina Ciampi	Senior Inter-Agency Gender Advisor	IASC, UNOCHA, Myanmar	caterina@un.org
12	Maria Holtsberg	Project Manager	Asian Disaster Preparedness center	mariah@adpc.net
13	Masumi Watase	Programme Specialist	UN Women ROAP	masumi.watase@unwomen.org
14	Maye Saephanh	Disaster Management Specialist	Humanitarian Emergency Affairs, East Asia Region , World Vision International	maye_saephanh@wvi.org
15	Mioh Nemoto	Regional Emergency Specialist	UNICEF	mnemoto@unicef.org
16	Oliver Lacey-Hall	Regional Director	UNOCHA for Asia and Pacific	lacey-hall@un.org
17	Onanong Anamarn	Programme Associate	UNHCR, Thailand	anamarn@unhcr.org
18	Priya Marwah	Humanitarian Programme Specialist	UNFPA	marwah@unfpa.org
19	Ramanathan Balakrishnan	Deputy Regional Director	UN Women	ramanathan.balakrishnan @unwomen.org
20	Rowena Dacsig	Gender Focal Point	UNOCHA, Philippines	dacsig@un.org
21	Samantha Orr	Humanitarian Affairs Officer	UNOCHA for Asia and Pacific	orrs@un.org
22	Sarah Martin	Facilitator	Consultant	smartindc@gmail.com
23	Stewart Davies	Regional Communication with Communities Officer	UNOCHA for Asia and Pacific	davies1@un.org
24	Zaw Min Htet	Field Coordination Officer	UNOCHA, Myanmar	htet1@un.org

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