Experts from FAO and WFP are working together to identify ways to alleviate the special suffering of women and girls in wartime and times of emergency, and draw on their strong coping strategies.
FAO's Women in Development and Special Relief Operations Services are collaborating with WFP to prepare a set of guidelines on socio-economic and gender analysis for emergency programmes. These guidelines are part of FAO's Socio-economic and Gender Analysis Programme (SEAGA) support for the Consolidated Appeal Process (CAP), whose theme for 2001 is "Women and war".
Emergencies affect women and girls very differently from men and boys. In wartime, men are generally the primary casualties, while women often find themselves unable to feed their families owing to loss of seeds, livestock and tools.
 Rice seed multiplication plots in - J.Dome |
Conflict situations also drastically increase the trauma of gender-specific physical insecurity. This is particularly true in remote rural areas far away from media coverage, where violations are often either ignored or unreported. Women's lower social and economic status makes them even more vulnerable in times of emergency.
Gender analysis is a tool that helps to clarify the specific needs and priorities, vulnerabilities and coping strategies of women and men, so that they can be more adequately addressed in an emergency situation. Lessons learned from emergency response reveal that interventions and life-saving strategies are more efficient and timely when gender differences have been properly understood and addressed.
The main objective of the FAO/WFP guidelines is to ensure more effective humanitarian assistance by mainstreaming gender analysis throughout the emergency response sequence, leading to quicker and more sustainable recovery, especially for the most disadvantaged people.
 Heifer beneficiary under the Emergency Farm Reconstruction Project - FAO Emergency Coordination Unit, Pristina |
