‘Investing in Grassroots Women for a Safer Tomorrow: GROOTS and Huairou Commission Make High Level Impact at UNISDR’s Global Platform on DRR’

Geneva, Switzerland June 16-19 2009

“I ask you all to take action in your particular capacities to make disaster risk reduction gender sensitive, and ensure that women become active participants in disaster risk reduction rather than being stereotyped as passive victims. The acceleration of community resilience and livelihood protection: mature methodologies and extensive civil society capacities are available, but these need more systematic support and stronger government-civil society partnerships.” Mr. John Holmes, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Emergency Relief Coordinator, and Chair of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction.
 
The opening statement of John Holmes at the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction in Geneva (June 16- 19) speaks to the centrality of women’s community based organizations as leaders and innovators of resilience strategies and practices.  He stressed the Platform is an opportunity to set up structures for citizen participation & partnerships with government authorities.  Echoing these remarks, the 13 person, 10 country delegations of GROOTS International and the Huairou Commission, supported by UNDP Gender Team, pressed a pro poor grassroots women’s agenda to implement the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) by ensuring that local communities disaster risk and vulnerability reduction strategies are recognized and integrated into core decision making processes. Both the Huairou Commission and GROOTS will be developing three year plans to further the gains we have achieved in Geneva.

The Platform was a strategic entry point for grassroots women’s voices to be heard- and recognized- namely through:

1. Opening Statements: PremaGopalan from SSP (India) and Haydee Rodriguez from Cooperative Las Brumas (Nicaragua) spoke on behalf of Huairou Commission and GROOTS International, respectively.  http://www.preventionweb.net/globalplatform/2009/programme/statements/(fullstatements)
2. The Human Dimension of Climate Change Adaption - The importance of local and institutional issues:  Maite Rodriguez from Fundacion Guatemala (Guatemala) was a panelist
3. NGO Steering Committee: Suranjana Gupta (GROOTS) is one of the steeringcommittee members
4. Hyogo Hard Talk: Maite Rodriguez was a panelist, Carmen Griffiths from CRDC (Jamaica) and Suranjana Gupta were embedded speakers
5. Plenary High Level Panel 3: Organized: Enabling Community Resilience through Preventative Action: Ana Lucy Bengochea  from El Comite (Honduras) was the keynote speaker and Sandy Schilen (GROOTS) was the rapporteur http://www.preventionweb.net/globalplatform/2009/programme/videos/wednesday/
6. Launch of the Views from the Frontline Report: Suranjana Gupta was a panelist
7. Roundtable 5: Disaster Risk Reduction - Creating Synergies at the Grassroots: Carmen Griffiths was a panelist, and Angel Marcos from CEPREDENC was a panelist and Suranjana Gupta was the rapporteur
8. Informal Plenary: Margareta Wahlström Assistant Secretary General for Disaster Risk Reduction chaired the Informal Plenary each day, and facilitated the sessions to be an engaging and provocative dialogue each day for input into ISDR. Our delegations participated daily, and the final summary report is reflective of our input.
9. Closing Plenary: Haydee Rodriguez was a key note speaker at the closing plenary of the forum.

Key themes emerging from the Platform:

1. Disaster and disaster risk are opportunities to empower affected communities & a chance to set up structures for citizen participation & partnerships with government authorities
2. Poor marginalized communities are forced to struggle against their exclusion when disasters strike (indigenous, pastoralist, women and geographically isolated groups especially) and take action to be seen as leaders in DRR and disaster response--not victims or passive, dependent beneficiaries of state driven actions and programs.
3. Wealth of evidence from around the world that grassroots women in poor communities organize & lead across relief, recovery and risk reduction (managing resources, adapting to climate change, mobilizing community actions). The challenge is how to facilitate, formalize & scale up their involvement & turn their “A-Z practical knowledge in disaster management” into formal roles & responsibilities
4. Traditional knowledge of at risk communities is key to effective early warning and long term resilience building programs
5. Protecting & promoting sustainable livelihoods is central to facilitating resilience and reducing vulnerability in poor disaster prone communities but it is a sorely neglected element of DRR and disaster response.

Investment in Capacity Building Needs to Focus on Community Based Actions

1. ‘Women’s Views from the Frontline,’ was launched at the Platform; this action research was undertaken by the Huairou Commission as part of the global assessment on the Hyogo Framework of Action to ensure that grassroots women’s voices informed the outcomes of the larger study, but also to create an entry point for grassroots women’s organizations to engage local government on the local implementation of the HFA.  Suranjana spoke to the need to reframe the DRR planning and programming agenda to be inclusive by engaging grassroots women’s organizations who represent citizens’ platforms, knowledge and action networks, and whose practices are linked to reducing vulnerability in the context of poverty reduction and DRR and need to be transferred and scaled up. Partnering with local governments to promote a collaborative approach to pro poor DRR is one way to create inclusive linkages in policy making.
2. As a follow up action to the First Global Platform on DRR in 2007, The Community Disaster Resilience Fund is an initiative of GROOTS International, ProVention Consortium and the Huairou Commission, endorsed by the National Disaster Management Authority of India and CEPREDENAC in Central America, and launched in 7 states in India, Guatemala and Honduras.  It is a mechanism that channels funds directly to community based organizations and is a demonstration of how community based women’s groups & poor people’s organizations can fast track local HFA implementation in partnership with local governments & disaster management authorities.  More information can be found here.

The final summary report on ISDR by IISD which mentions our delegates and our input can be found at:
http://www.iisd.ca/download/pdf/sd/ymbvol141num2e.pdf

For more information on GROOTS and Huairou Commission at the Global Platform or the Community Resilience Campaign please contact Suranjana Gupta suranjanagroots@aol.com or Julia Miller jmillergrootshc@gmail.com