Between 26 March and 2 April, national workshops in Cambodia and Lao PDR brought together more than 80 stakeholders to strengthen gender mainstreaming in flood early warning systems and risk management, promoting inclusive, data-driven solutions.
Under the framework of the CREWS Cambodia and Lao PDR project , People in Need - in collaboration with WMO and the Associated Programme on Flood Management (APFM) Support Base Partner Knowledge and Innovation - carried out two national workshops in Cambodia, and Lao People's Democratic Republic between 26 March and 2 April on gender mainstreaming into End-to-End Early Warning Systems in Flood Forecasting (E2E-EWS-FF) and Integrated Risk Management (IFM) .
The three-day workshops brought together more than 80 participants from meteorological and hydrological services, international organizations (Oxfam, Plan International, Red Cross societies), local authorities, civil society organizations and community volunteers, to discuss gender specific issues, needs and challenges related to flood management in their respective countries.
Initial sessions were conducted to present gender specific impacts during flooding, and general concept and processes related to E2E-EWS-FF and IFM. Further, different tools, approaches and methods on gender mainstreaming in planning, programming, budgeting and monitoring-evaluation processes related to the different phases of the flood management at all levels were presented.
Following these sessions, participants prepared project concept notes on topics related to flood management (community-based approaches, design and development of early warning systems, capacity development and Information, Education and Communication (IEC) materials) with gender inclusive or sensitive approaches.
To conclude the trainings, three key recommendations were made to ensure gender mainstreaming is carried out in E2E-EWS-FF and IFM:
- At the national level, solutions should be co-designed with all relevant stakeholders the implementation of the E2E-EWS-FF and IFRM activities;
- At the national and local levels, relevant structures with the necessary resources (human, technical etc.) should be provided to take gender and social inclusion issues into account in the E2E-EWS-FF and IFRM processes; and
- At the national and local levels data should be collected with a gender lens, and a sex and age disaggregated database should be established
The workshop provided an opportunity to utilize a draft training manual for mainstreaming gender into E2E-EWS-FF and IFM developed by the APFM, which has already been tested in the Caribbean, Latin America, and West and South Africa. Based on the experience gained and good practices collected, the training manual will be refined and published online for various users to apply it in their respective countries or regions where gender mainstreaming is a challenge or where there is a need for improved flood management.
