Enabling Gender-Responsive Disaster Recovery, Climate and Environmental Resilience in the Caribbean (EnGenDER)

UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, works for the elimination of discrimination against women and girls; the empowerment of women; and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security.

The physical impacts of climate change and natural hazards are compounding structural inequalities and socioeconomic vulnerabilities since gender equality and human rights are not given enough consideration required for climate change mitigation and adaptation, and in disaster risk, recovery and response within the Caribbean Region.

Women and men typically prepare for, respond to and recover from in various ways to hazard impacts. Therefore, EnGenDER seeks to further integrate gender equality and human-rights based approaches into disaster risk reduction (DRR), climate change (CC) adaptation and environmental management frameworks and interventions to identify and address the gaps to ensure equal access to DRR and climate change and environment solutions for men, women, boys and girls.

Appreciating that the 9 participating Caribbean countries are at different stages of removing barriers to gender quality and integrating gender-based analysis into climate change, as well as recovery, this project aims to ensure that climate change and disaster risk reduction actions are better informed by an analysis of gender inequalities, and decisions are taken to ensure that inequalities are alleviated rather than exacerbated and that minimum standards are being met in doing so.  These underlying gender inequalities (specific to each country context) are compounded by increasingly intense and frequently experienced climate change and disaster risk within Caribbean societies. It aims to empower governments to take ownership of their disaster risks and exposure with better national arrangements to deal with possible large-scale recovery needs, including improved shock responsiveness in national systems and better social protection tools that will supporting targeting, data management and financing for the benefit of the most vulnerable. As such, the project’s ultimate outcome is improved climate and disaster resilience for women and girls and key vulnerable populations and future generations in the Caribbean.

The EnGenDER project will support CC, DRR and environmental management interventions in the 9 Caribbean countries by leveraging sector-level entry points (e.g. NAPs and NAMAs), specifically supporting implementation and/or upscaling of countries’ priority actions. This project will analyse and prioritise the needs of the most vulnerable with respect to climate change adaptation and mitigation in priority sectors, including increasing their resilience in key livelihood sectors. It will also improve institutional capacities for delivering services effectively for the most vulnerable to accelerate post-disaster recovery and mitigate risk. By using a multi-disciplinary and integrated approach, the project also aims to contribute to the achievement of several SDGs (2, 5, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16).

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is the UN’s Global Development Network, advocating for change and connecting countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. We are on the ground in over 170 countries, employing participatory approaches to developing local solutions to national and global development challenges. UNDP’s core vision is to help countries achieve simultaneous eradication of poverty and significant reduction of inequalities and exclusion, within a context of 3 development settings: eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions, accelerating structural transformations for sustainable development, and building resilience to crises and shocks.