The HCRI 2022 Landmark Lecture will be given by UCL's Prof. Maureen Fordham, an expert on community-based disaster risk reduction and vulnerability analysis, focusing on the inclusion of a range of marginalised social groups in disaster risk reduction, especially women and girls.
More on Maureen at: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/risk-disaster-reduction/people/prof-maureen-fordham
DETAILS:
The talk and Q&A, will be followed by a drinks and canapés reception in the Roscoe Building foyer
This event is open to the public and all staff/students at University of Manchester
This will be a hybrid-event, with the option of attending in-person or online (please choose the correct ticket option)
REGISTER VIA:
https://landmarklecture.eventbrite.co.uk/
TOPIC:
There is now a considerable body of work that addresses a range of issues that connect gender and disaster (see resources at https://www.gdnonline.org/resources). For some parts of the disaster-humanitarianism-development nexus, it is no longer necessary to explain why we need to include gender; for others there is still much work to be done. For example, disaster warning systems often prioritise technical over social parameters, but we will see a UN Women video whose main protagonist (a grassroots Unit Leader in the Cyclone Preparedness Program Bangladesh), clearly articulates the gendered social context of warnings.
The disaster-humanitarianism-development nexus itself encompasses many differing aims, worldviews, tasks and approaches – even without the addition of gender. Bringing all these together can mean that we all may be starting at very different levels of understanding, interest or willingness to engage with this issue.
This presentation offers some examples of the ways the gender and disaster connection has been addressed, sidelined or simplified and some thoughts about continuing gaps, challenges and opportunities. For example, we will explore how Bangladesh has made a major gender responsive input to their National Resilience Programme, the goal of which is ‘To sustain the resilience of human and economic development in Bangladesh through inclusive, gender responsive disaster management and risk informed development’ (here).
In policy areas (e.g the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030), we have seen some enhancement of the gender focus since earlier Global Frameworks, but we still need to make the case for a vision that goes beyond a narrow focus on women and on women as vulnerable, and that addresses intersectionality.
Speaker
Dr Maureen Fordham
Role: Professorial Research Associate
Organisation: Institute for Risk & Disaster Reduction, UCL
Biography: Maureen Fordham has been researching disasters since 1988 and is an expert on community-based disaster risk reduction and vulnerability analysis, focusing on the inclusion of a range of marginalised social groups in disaster risk reduction, especially women and girls. She was a founding member of the Gender and Disaster Network in 1997 and is the Coordinator of its website (www.gdnonline.org) and activities. She has been a governmental advisor at all scales from local through national to the global UN level. She was closely involved in negotiations which led to the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030. She was a facilitator and researcher involved with developing a gender responsive National Resilience Programme for Bangladesh (launched August 2017) together with the Government of Bangladesh, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), UN Women and the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS).
