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Corps Report on Gender & Resilience:
Ebola Virus, Tsunamis & Droughts
— How Gender Inequality Undermines Community Resilience
By Sahar Alnouri* -
Up to three out of four people who contract the deadly Ebola virus are women.
Nearly two out of three people who died in the 2004
The reason women and girls experience
disproportionately greater impact from disease outbreaks, natural disasters and
other life-threatening hardships has little to do with biology — and much to do
with gender roles.
In
Knowing that shocks such as these affect gender groups
differently, Mercy
Corps conducted a research between
June 2013 and January 2014 to explore the relationship of gender dynamics and
resilience building. We chose to study the Sahel region of
Resilience is hardly a new concept in the field of
international development. In fact, it has become something of a buzzword,
owing to a number of recent crises across the globe. Mercy Corps defines
resilience as the capacity of communities in complex socio-ecological systems
to learn, cope, adapt and transform in the face of shocks and stresses. And it
is our belief that in the Sahel, the key to that capacity — indeed, the key to
survival of the
Put another way: As long as gender inequality remains,
resilience will be impossible to achieve.
This theory of change stems from our research findings,
which show that:
● Gender influences
sensitivity to disturbances. In other words, men and women — even those who
live in the same household — experience shocks and stresses differently.
● Men, women, boys and girls
perceive and even define shocks differently.
● Gender influences the
skills, strategies and mechanisms that individuals use to cope with and adapt
to disturbances.
These findings suggest that the first step to building
resilience is using gender-sensitive approaches to define problems and design
solutions. We cannot fully understand the shocks and stresses communities face
without understanding the different needs, vulnerabilities and capacities
within those communities.
Based on our research and our experience developing
programs that address existing
gender inequalities in the Sahel, Mercy Corps envisions three
interdependent pathways to empowerment. Key steps include increasing women and
girls’ access to and control of:
● Financial, physical and
natural capital, allowing women and girls to better adapt to the shocks and
stresses they face.
● Human capital, which leads
to knowledge, skills and information that will reduce stresses on households
and help to conserve limited natural resources.
● Social and political
capital, considered a vital coping strategy for the rural poor, especially
women.
With these pathways to empowerment in mind, Mercy Corps
recommends a series of transformations in the
First, we should provide opportunities for women and
girls to build social capital by creating or strengthening “safe spaces” and
support networks, including both formal and informal village savings and loans
associations. We must also strengthen women and girls’ connections to groups
and networks across and outside their communities, and strengthen their voices
to informal and formal governance structures. Lastly, it’s vital to increase
women and girls’ access to and control over productive inputs (like land,
financial services or agricultural tools), resources, services and technologies.
A gender-integrated approach that empowers women and
girls — while also engaging men and boys — will be crucial for achieving
long-term, positive change and transforming deeply entrenched inequality in the
*Sahar Alnouri is senior gender adviser at Mercy Corps. Prior to taking on this global role, she was the organization's Iraq gender program manager based in Baghdad, and also worked for Counterpart International out of Kabul. Alnouri was a member of Mercy Corps' emergency response team during the 2009 crisis in Gaza and the Arab Spring assessment team in Egypt in early 2011.