2011 Gender in Emergencies: Why Gender Matters – Empowering Women and Girls as a Key Strategy towards ending Poverty and Conflict

The panel will focus on approaches and experiences to ensure that the consideration of women and girls is given particular emphasis and focus in our efforts. By addressing the context and dynamics of how women and girls are both subject to external societal conditions as well as are actors in internal family interrelationships, we strive to ensure that life-saving humanitarian response efforts reach all vulnerable community members in a fair and equitable manner. The experience in complex natural and conflict related emergencies demonstrates a need to incorporate a gender lens in all interventions undertaken, or else we risk contributing to women and girls becoming even more vulnerable in the future. NGOs strive to ensure that this is not a one-dimensional approach focusing only on the female gender, but on the dynamics between men and women, boys and girls, at different societal, political and family levels. These complex relationships must be understood and considered for an effective humanitarian response.

Keynote Speech
Barbara Jackson, CARE


Moderator

Petra Ramsauer, Author and Journalist

Panel Members
Andrew Collodel, HelpAge International
Christine South, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
Christina Stummer, Austrian Development Agency
Richard Walker, Médecins Sans Frontièrs