This brief attempts to unpack the relationship between gender and resilience by reviewing the evidence on mens and womens differential exposure to risk and the differential impact of shocks on men and women, and by examining the different types of mechanisms that men and women use to cope with and insure against risk. In reviewing these mechanisms, we assess whether they contribute to building resilience and we suggest gender-sensitive insurance mechanisms that will allow men and women alike to manage and cope with risk and vulnerability.
Resource-poor people face multiple risks and disturbances across social, economic, health, political, and environmental spheres. Included among these are conflict, public health threats, corruption, climate change, and natural resource degradation. The concept of resilience provides a useful framework for considering potential solutions to these intersecting challenges. This is particularly the case in situations where structural problems and inequalities—such as chronic poverty and gender gaps—underlie persistent and recurring shocks. Growing evidence shows that men and women have different exposure to shocks and stressors, and different preferences and capacities in terms of their responses. This stems from gendered social, cultural, and institutional contexts that shape such factors as their livelihood activities, roles, and bargaining power. Importantly, these factors are intrinsically linked with women’s empowerment levels, including their ability to access resources and make strategic life choices to improve their overall wellbeing. Because shocks and stressors occur in local contexts with different power structures, institutions, and sociocultural norms, it is difficult to generalize the different ways men and women are affected and choose to respond. Men’s and women’s experiences and reactions largely depend on the types of overlapping shocks and stressors they are exposed to. This brief highlights some of the key gendered dimensions of resilience, drawing on evidence from the literature, including systematic reviews and global indicators, where available, as well as case-study examples that highlight important linkages. The evidence summarized is intended to guide the development and implementation of gender-sensitive resilience interventions focusing on key programming areas of interest to Feed the Future’s Center for Resilience.
Health shocks (unpredictable illnesses and injuries) are an important source of risk for individuals in developing countries. In the absence of formal financial products such as health insurance or health savings accounts, unexpected illness or injury can have severe consequences. The burden of responding to health shocks often falls disproportionately on women, since they usually act as primary caregivers in households, and as a result are responsible for managing the health of children or elderly dependents. Despite this, much research around the uptake of health insurance or other risk-management products focuses on households instead of individuals, without considering how gender may affect individual preferences for, and access to, these products. To address this issue, this policy brief uses a unique dataset on individuals from rural households in sub-Saharan Africa to demonstrate how the financial lives of men and women differ in important respects, and how these differences may have important implications for policy on universal access to health services.
This policy note recommends key areas of inquiry for assessing gender and social differences in resilience that can be used to inform, evaluate, and strengthen resilience programming. Grounded in the conceptual framework of the Gender, Climate, and Nutrition Integration Initiative(GCAN), the note identifies and describes key gender issues related to resilience. Greater attention to heterogeneity in resilience forms the foundation for developing locally specific strategies to strengthen resilience for all.
This book adds significantly to the discourse surrounding the progress made in empowering women in Africa over the last decade, providing strong research evidence on diverse and timely gender issues in varied African countries. Topics covered include climate change and environmental degradation, agriculture and land rights, access to – and quality of – education, maternal and reproductive health, unpaid care and women’s labor market participation, financial inclusion and women’s political participation. Cross cutting issues such as migration, masculinities and social norms are also addressed in this volume, which is aimed at policy makers, academics, and indeed anyone else interested in the UN Sustainable Development Goal of the empowerment of women and girls.
This book explores the intersection of gender, digitalization, and resilience in international development. Building resilience is increasingly seen as crucial when planning and implementing development programmes, enabling communities to mitigate, adapt to, and recover from shocks and stresses in a manner that reduces chronic vulnerability and facilitates inclusive growth. Gender plays a crucial role in the resilience of development systems, as the exclusion of women from participation can make communities more vulnerable to economic shocks, perpetuating and even worsening current levels of poverty, instability, and insecurity. Drawing on meta-data from across the world, as well as specific case studies from Ghana, Kenya, Burkina Faso, and Mozambique, this book reflects on these intersections and the potential of digitalization as a democratizing tool for improving the access of women and other marginalized groups to information vital for their participation in the process of development. By outlining the importance of digitalization for addressing gender imbalances, this book draws the evidentiary lines between the role of digitalization for women and resilience as a whole. This book will be of interest to development practitioners and policy makers, as well as researchers with specialisms in gender inclusion, resilience, digitalization, and international development.
Men and women, boys and girls have different experiences of disasters. Gender dynamics impact both the way they are affected by disasters and their capacity to withstand and recover from them. Gender inequalities can result in gender-differentiated disaster impact, and differentiated impacts can influence gender dynamics, which in turn affect future resilience to shocks. Disaster risk management policies are designed to maximize results, taking local conditions - including gender dynamics - as fixed. When women and men are affected differently by disasters, practitioners and policy makers have a responsibility to use the tools available for mitigating disaster impacts to close gender gaps in outcome. An improved understanding of the gender dynamics of disaster risk and resilience also allows for better policy and program design, which benefits all stakeholders.
"This book explores the intersection of gender, digitization, and resilience in international development. Building resilience is increasingly seen as crucial when planning and implementing development programmes, enabling communities to mitigate, adapt to, and recover from shocks and stresses in a manner that reduces chronic vulnerability and facilitates inclusive growth. Gender plays a crucial role in the resilience of development systems, as the exclusion of women from the workforce can make communities more vulnerable to economic shocks, perpetuating and even worsening current levels of poverty, instability and insecurity. Drawing on meta-data from across the world, as well as specific case studies from Ghana, Kenya and Malawi, this book reflects on these intersections and the potential of digitalization as a democratizing tool for improving the access of women and other marginalized groups to information vital for their participation in the process of development. By outlining the importance of digitization for addressing gender imbalances, this book will draw the evidentiary lines between the role of digitization for women, and through women, for resilience as a whole. This book will be of interest to development practitioners and policy makers, as well as to researchers with specialisms in gender inclusion, resilience, digitization, and international development"--
Focusing on the vulnerability and resilience to economic shocks at the household level, this book draws on extensive research activities carried out in two Melanesia countries: the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. In particular, it identifies the household impacts of the recent food, fuel and economic crises. The contributors also examine resilience by identifying how households responded to these recent economic events in order to cope with their impacts. Findings indicate that households are vulnerable to a range of shocks and often struggle to cope with their impacts. Shocks are making it harder for households to meet their basic needs. Households in Melanesia are facing increasing demands for money, in particular for school fees, basic foodstuffs and customary obligations. Concurrently, there are limited domestic opportunities for formal employment. Traditional social support networks are strong and are an important form of resilience. However, there is evidence that they are disintegrating. Of particular focus are the gendered impacts. Women are found to bear a disproportionate share of the burden in adjusting to household shocks. The authors highlight key areas in which public policy and development programmes can reduce household vulnerability and increase their resilience to future economic shocks.
Despite significant recent improvements in measuring resilience, there are still relevant gaps in the analysis. One of the relatively unexplored aspects of resilience is whether a genderspecific analysis of resilience capacity can become relevant for policy use. This paper contributes to the literature on resilience by analysing a data set with one of the most adopted resilience indicators and highlighting the emerging gaps.
