Publication: Violence against Women and Girls (VAWG): Disaster Risk Management Brief Second Edition
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2023-07-11
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2023-07-11
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Disasters triggered by climate and other natural hazards are increasing in frequency, severity, and duration worldwide. Disasters, whether from natural hazards or man-made, cost lives and livelihoods, and do not have an equal effect on everyone. Women, girls, children, elderly people, persons with disabilities, and indigenous peoples,— especially in lower-income countries — are often disproportionately affected by disasters. Emerging evidence suggests that violence against women and girls (VAWG) increases in disaster settings. Managing the growing disaster risks associated with VAWG should therefore be integrated into all aspects of development. This brief, updating the previous DRM brief published in 2015, contains guidance on ethics and safety; resources for conducting a rapid situation analysis; specific ideas for implementation of policies and programs at the institutional, sectoral, and community levels at three stages (before, during and after the emergency); detailed examples of promising practices with a menu of indicators for use in monitoring and evaluation; and several active links to more-detailed resources and toolkits for working at the intersection of DRM and VAWG.
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“World Bank. 2023. Violence against Women and Girls (VAWG): Disaster Risk Management Brief Second Edition. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/39974 License: CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO.”
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Publication Violence Against Women and Girls : Introduction(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-12)Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is one of the most oppressive forms of gender inequality and stands as a fundamental barrier to equal participation of women and men in social, economic, and political spheres. Such violence impedes gender equality and the achievement of a range of development outcomes. VAWG is a complex and multifaceted problem that cannot effectively be addressed from a single vantage point. The prevention of, and response to, such violence requires coordinated action across multiple sectors. This resource guide was developed through a partnership between the Global Women s Institute (GWI) at George Washington University, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and the World Bank Group (WBG). The primary audiences for the guide are IDB and WBG staff and member countries, as well as other development professionals who do not yet have experience addressing VAWG. The purpose of this guide is to provide the reader with basic information on the characteristics and consequences of VAWG, including the operational implications that VAWG can have in several priority sectors of the IDB and WBG. It also offers guidance on how to integrate VAWG prevention and provide quality services to violence survivors across a range of development projects. Lastly, it recommends strategies for integrating VAWG prevention and response into policies and legislation, as well as sector programs and projects.Publication Violence Against Women and Girls : Disaster Risk Management Brief(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-04)Violence against women and girls (VAWG) has negative impacts on physical and mental health. Health care settings provide a unique opportunity to identify VAWG survivors, provide critical support services, and prevent future harm. Ample studies have shown that natural disasters, including tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods, disproportionately affect women and girls, who are at greater risk of violence and exploitation than men and boys in the face of uprooted housing and traditional support structures, disrupted access to services, and both structural and social obstacles to accessing food, relief, supplies, and latrines. A study conducted four years after Hurricane Katrina occurred in the United States found that the rate of new cases of VAWG among displaced women also increased and did not return to the pre-hurricane baseline during the protracted phase of displacement.Publication Violence Against Women and Girls : Social Protection Brief(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-12)The definition of social protection (SP) programs varies widely, as do the types of interventions included and the specific outcomes sought. 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Examples include early childhood development, projects that focus on at-risk youth, or targeted poverty alleviation programs.Publication Specific Operational Recommendations per Project to Address Violence Against Women and Girls in Central America Portfolio Prioritized Projects(Washington, DC, 2023-06)This report aims to review Latin America and Caribbean (LC2) projects both in preparation and implementation phases to identify key entry points to address Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG). This review sought to identify VAWG prevention and response actions beyond Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (SEA) and Sexual Harassment (SH), which are part of the risk mitigation strategy that is included in a project’s social risk assessment. In some cases, activities that will support mitigation of SEA/SH risks are also included. This report is divided into two sections. 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It examines the diversity of geographical context, the types of violence addressed, and the numerous approaches that have been used to combat VAWG. Additionally the review summarizes the quality of evidence on efficacy and effectiveness in order to highlight strengths and gaps of interventions on a global scale and could serve as a point of reference for those intending to undertake future design, implementation, and evaluation of interventions. This paper finds that knowledge of intervention impacts on VAWG prevention is growing, but is still highly limited. Nonetheless, a small but growing body of rigorously tested interventions demonstrates that preventing VAWG is possible and can achieve large effect sizes. The interventions with the most positive findings used multiple, well-integrated approaches and engaged with multiple stakeholders over time. They also addressed underlying risk factors for violence, including social norms regarding gender dynamics and the acceptability of violence. These examples point to the imperative of greatly increasing investment both in innovative programming in primary prevention, as well as in high-quality experimental and quasi-experimental evaluations to guide international efforts to end VAWG.
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Between 2018 and 2023, as many as 11 tropical depressions or cyclones impacted the country, with Cyclone Kenneth causing the greatest damage, equivalent to 14 percent of GDP, resulting in total economic growth falling from 3.6 percent in 2018 to 1.9 percent in 2019. More than 345,000 people (40 percent of the population) were affected by the cyclone, with 185,000 people experiencing severe impacts and 12,000 people displaced. However, there is an opportunity for the country to grow more robust and shock-responsive, and to establish pre-positioned funding mechanisms to enhance future crisis response efforts. For the Comoros, adaptation and climate-resilient development are the key climate change focus areas, with the country projected to face 836 million dollars 2050 in additional costs due to climate-related impacts. 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