The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) invited the World Bank’s Tokyo Disaster Risk Management (DRM) Hub to speak and participate during the public event titled “Not Leaving Anyone Behind: Overcoming Challenges during Evacuation” and contribute to the formulation of action plans during their training course on “Gender and Diversity in Disaster Risk Reduction” during October 24-25, 2018 in Sendai.
In total, nine government officials and international organization representatives from Bangladesh, Mexico, Myanmar, Philippines, and Sri Lanka participated in JICA’s training course, which took place on October 10 to 25, 2018. The objective of the training course was to provide an opportunity for the participants and Japanese counterparts to share knowledge on gender and diversity-based approaches, to work together for an effective approach to strengthening the inclusion of the perspective of gender and diversity and, promoting women's leadership to disaster risk reduction and disaster prevention.
The public event invited experts from local and international non-profit organizations and academia to present their expertise and initiatives on gender and diversity in DRM and disaster response. Some of the best practice examples shared by experts during the discussions included: setting up private changing rooms and nursing rooms just for women at evacuation shelters, designing designated buildings for shelters to be disability friendly, and planning at the community level for evacuation of the elderly with difficulties with mobility.
After the workshop, Ms. Sayaka Yoda, Program Officer at the Tokyo DRM Hub introduced the World Bank’s new “Disability Inclusion and Accountability Framework” which was developed to support the mainstreaming of disability in World Bank activities during the closing remarks.
During the Action Planning Workshop Session, participants presented their action plans on how to apply lessons learned from Japan back in their respective countries to further policy reforms, engage community trainings, and produce information dissemination material to raise awareness on the integration of gender and disability inclusion in DRM.
Moving forward, JICA and the World Bank Tokyo DRM Hub will continue their collaboration to further promote gender and diversity perspectives in DRM, through contributions to international events and knowledge exchange events, and the World Bank will continue mainstreaming these following frameworks such as the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the “Disability Inclusion and Accountability Framework”.
