Gender equality accelerates resilience
Gender inequality is one of the major barriers to risk-informed development. But when women lead DRR, communities become stronger and safer.
This International Women’s Day, GNDR is joining the global call to accelerate action – because when it comes to disaster risk reduction (DRR), gender inequality remains a critical barrier to resilience.
Women and girls face disproportionate impacts from disasters, often due to systemic inequalities that limit access to education, resources, and decision-making spaces. Yet, they are also powerful leaders, change-makers, and first responders in building resilience within their communities.
That’s why we’ve asked GNDR members worldwide:
“How can we accelerate action to achieve gender-inclusive DRR?”
To mark International Women’s Day 2025, we’re sharing insights, stories, and solutions from our network – highlighting how locally-led action, inclusive policies, and equitable participation can drive faster progress toward resilience for all.
IWD playlistEmpowering women leaders in Rwanda
Our groundbreaking Local Leadership for Global Impact project significantly boosted disaster resilience in high-risk communities worldwide. By enhancing disaster planning capacities, promoting locally-led strategies, and advocating for systemic changes, the project has empowered communities to strengthen their own resilience.
A key focus of the project was empowering women to take on leadership roles within disaster preparedness and climate resilience. 79 women joined the global pilot of our Women’s Mentorship programme, and 41 successfully completed the training.
Judith Mbarushimana, a participant from Rwanda, spoke highly of the programme’s impact: “This mentorship programme has improved my negotiation skills and opened new opportunities. I’m inspired to mentor other women, especially those in poor conditions, to support them in climate change response training.”
Judith not only enhanced her own skills but went on to mentor others in her community as well. Her experience highlights how the mentorship improved her negotiation skills and opened new opportunities for her to engage with climate change response initiatives. Furthermore, five women, including Judith, trained an additional 45 women, multiplying the impact of the project at the grassroots level.
This transformative change in Rwanda was echoed globally through the project, showing how localised efforts, particularly those focused on women’s leadership, can catalyse broader community resilience.
How is GNDR working towards gender equality in DRR?
Women-Led Anticipatory Action for Resilience in Indonesia and the Philippines
GNDR, in partnership with Yakkum Emergency Unit (YEU) in Indonesia and the Centre for Disaster Preparedness in the Philippines, is implementing a regional project funded by Diakonie Katastrophenhilfe. With technical support from the Asia Disaster Risk and Response Network (ADRRN), this initiative aims to strengthen community resilience by fostering women’s leadership in inclusive early warning systems, localised climate projections, and innovative anticipatory action.
Over two years, the project will work to enhance the role of women and women-led organisations in disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation. While women are key agents of change, their voices and capacities remain underutilised, and they are often excluded from decision-making processes. This project seeks to assess the inclusivity of existing anticipatory action frameworks, strengthen women’s leadership, and ensure gender-responsive approaches in disaster preparedness and response in Indonesia and the Philippines.
Gender risk driver working group
Our 2020-2025 Strategy identified gender inequality as a key driver of risk. So we’ve created a gender working group across our network that is working specifically to drive action that reduces the impact of disasters on women and girls.
We know that it is one of the major barriers to risk-informed development, and that it interconnects with all other drivers of risk. Unless development is systematically gender transformative, we will see disasters placing women into intractable cycles of poverty.
This means we must stand together to bring about a shift from women being viewed as a homogenous group with a ‘one size fits all’ approach to reducing their risk, to developing distinct ways of building resilience relevant to the diverse contexts and factors which women are experiencing, including age, culture, class, caste, and more.