Mainstreaming Gender in Disaster Management Support Project 

A. Challenges and Opportunities 

Challenges. The risk of natural disasters in India is extremely high. Because of its sub-continental characteristics and geography, the country is exposed to droughts, floods, cyclones, earthquakes, and landslides. Technological hazards also contribute to disaster risk in India.   

India is one of the most hazard-prone countries in South Asia. Major rivers flood every year. Drought is a recurring phenomenon. Landslides are frequent, especially in the hill areas. Cyclones threaten most of the 6,083-km coastline. Northern India, especially the northeast, is in a high seismic risk zone. Out of the total surface area of 135.79 million square kilometers, 54 percent is susceptible to earthquakes, while 40 million hectares are susceptible to floods. Manmade risks include hazardous wastes, chemical spills, civil strife, and terrorism. These hazards threaten millions of lives and cause large-scale financial, infrastructure, crop, and productivity losses that seriously set back India’s overall development efforts.  

Disasters and related risks and vulnerabilities have social as well as physical dimensions. Gender roles and relations shape the capacity of women and men to respond to disaster, and place women and those in their care at much greater risk. The Indian government has embraced the new paradigm for disaster management as part of development and it plans to mainstream prevention, preparation, and mitigation into all sectors. USAID/India’s strategic objective for disaster management support (DMS) is one of the few, if not the only, U.S. bilateral agreements of its kind, particularly given its emphasis on vulnerable groups, including women. These strategies, combined with the Indian government’s strong policy for the empowerment of women, offer an ideal opportunity to mainstream gender into disaster management in India. 

The risks and vulnerabilities that people face from natural disasters are as much a product of their social situation as their physical environment. Social networks, power relationships, knowledge and skills, gender roles, health, wealth, and location all affect risk and vulnerability to disasters and the capacity to respond to them. 

Traditional gender roles and relations increase women’s vulnerability. For example, more females died in an earthquake in the western state of Maharashtra because they were in their homes while men were harvesting crops, preparing for a festival, or working in other districts, and boys were attending school elsewhere. During a 1991 cyclone in Bangladesh, many women perished with their children at home because they had to wait for their husbands to return and decide whether the family would evacuate.

Both men and women act heroically during disasters while at the same time suffering severe trauma and dislocation. But gender relations severely limit the ability women to respond to disasters. In many ways, cultural norms inhibit women from obtaining relief services. Food distribution, for example, targets the male head of household, which marginalizes women. 

Women and girls are more vulnerable to sexual abuse in disaster situations and may be coerced into sex for basic needs. While women generally are most vulnerable during and after disasters, they also have skills to manage family and household affairs that they bring to all phases of the disaster-management cycle. Women often bear many responsibilities in disasters, particularly when men are absent. When women are absent, men may lack basic survival skills. Husbands separated from their wives by disaster can suffer poor nutrition because men don’t know how to cook, as was the case in Ethiopian refugee camps.

Opportunities. The international community has recognized the importance of the “relief-todevelopment continuum,” but its focus has tended to be on response and recovery. The new paradigm for disaster management is a cycle in which development goals guide disaster response-and-recovery strategies and interventions, while disaster prevention, preparedness, and mitigation goals inform development strategies and interventions. 

The Indian government has embraced this new paradigm and approaches disaster management as integral to development. Disaster management—including prevention, preparation, and mitigation—will be mainstreamed into all sectors. The government is committed to gender integration and the inclusion of vulnerable groups in its disaster-management strategy. This commitment is reflected in its strong National Policy for the Empowerment of Women. USAID/India’s strategic objective (SO) for disaster-management support is one of the few USAID bilateral agreements providing capacity-building for disaster management. This SO, combined with the Indian government’s commitment on gender, offers a unique opportunity to ensure that gender issues are taken into account and that vulnerable groups, including women, play a role in all phases of disaster management, particularly the establishment of institutional structures and the development of effective policies. 

This report analyzes gender and disasters in India and presents strategies for mainstreaming gender into USAID’s disaster-management support (DMS) program. To facilitate implementation of these strategies, the report includes tools that will assist USAID/India to address these challenges and build on the opportunities to strengthen DMS and development programs overall in India.