Grassroots Women Leaders Shape Regional Disaster Risk Policy at PCGIR Forum
Panama City, March 2026 – A delegation of Huairou Commission’s grassroots women leaders participated in the VIII Consultative Forum of the Central American Policy for Comprehensive Disaster Risk Management (PCGIR), convened by CEPREDENAC in Panama City from March 17-19, 2026. The Forum brought together governments, technical agencies, and civil society to evaluate and advance the regional framework guiding disaster risk reduction (DRR) across Central America.
The delegation, was made up of members from:
- Unión de Cooperativas de Mujeres Productoras “Las Brumas”, Nicaragua,
- Asociación Salvadoreña de Apoyo y Promoción para la Mujer (ASAPROMU), El Salvador,
- Fundación de las Mujeres Cooperativistas de Panamá (FUNDEPROMU COOP), Panama
- Cooperativa Luz del Llano, Panama
- Mujeres, Democracia y Ciudadanía A.C. (MUDECI), Mexico
During the conference, members contributed directly to technical roundtables on disaster management and recovery, social vulnerability reduction, and territorial governance. Youth leaders Silvia Cienfuegos and Ana Rodríguez from Panama were recognized for their strong contributions in the Forum’s Youth Interactive Space.
The Huairou delegation’s core message at PCGIR 2026 was that grassroots women are frontline experts in disaster risk management, and regional policy must formally recognize their leadership. They called for the certification of community women as disaster risk practitioners, the integration of ancestral knowledge into climate resilience strategies, and greater inclusion of grassroots voices in policy spaces where decisions about their communities are made. The VIII Forum’s final declaration incorporated language on cooperativism and community mapping tools raised by the Huairou delegation.
The Forum also opened new partnerships with UNDRR, UNDP Latin America, Panama’s SINAPROC, CEPREDENAC’s Gender Unit, and the Risk-Informed Early Action Partnership – with follow-up planned on joint training, programming, and advocacy at national and regional levels.
Read the Final Declaration (in Spanish), here: https://cepredenac.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Declaracion-VIII-Foro-Consultivo.pdf