JOINT AU / UN Women / ARC Press Release
African Risk Capacity (ARC) and UN Women join forces to Integrate Gender into Disaster Risk Management
Dakar-Senegal, September 16, 2021 – The African Risk Capacity (ARC) and the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to promote integration of gender equality in the disaster risk management.
L-R: Oulimata Sarr, UN Women, Regional Director for West and Central Africa, Director-General of the ARC Group, UN-ASG Ibrahima Cheikh Diong, and Siaka Coulibaly, the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Senegal at the signing of the MoU earlier today in Dakar, Senegal.
Under the MoU, signed by the Heads of both institutions, the Parties will jointly engage in high-level advocacy, communication, dialogue, awareness-building, knowledge development and sharing and resource mobilisation leveraging the influence of both agencies to pursue a stronger political engagement for Gender and DRM in the Sahel and other African countries.
Underscoring the importance of the partnership, the Director-General of the ARC Group, UN-ASG Ibrahima Cheikh Diong, stated the impacts of natural disasters do not affect all people equally and that adopting an inclusive and gender-sensitive approach will help strengthen the resilience of vulnerable communities for better climate adaptation. According to Mr Diong, “Disasters are gender neutral, but the impacts are not same for everyone, therefore inclusive gender equality is a cross-cutting priority area in our work. We believe that the partnership with UN Women will be mutually beneficial to achieving our common objective to raise awareness on gender perspectives in DRM and increase the knowledge of our Members States through full utilisation of the innovative tools we have developed for analysing vulnerability levels for women and men in the wake of natural perils.”
Recently, ARC collaborated with the African Union Commission’s Directorate of Sustainable Environment and Blue Economy under the Department for Agriculture, Rural Development, Blue Economy and Sustainable Environment and other partners, to launch the Gender and Disaster Risk Management Platform (GDRMP). The Platform aims to promote knowledge development and sharing, advocacy and policy dialogue on gender transformative DRM approaches geared towards the adoption of a gender transformative ‘culture of insurance’ by Member States. This is in addition to the ARC Gender Transformative Fund which aims to help unlock needed resources to build Member States’ capacity for gender mainstreaming in disaster risk management.
Oulimata Sarr, UN Women, Regional Director for West and Central Africa, highlighted the importance for a joint approach in raising awareness on the importance of gender equality and the empowerment of vulnerable populations in the region:
”Natural disasters and other shocks disproportionally affect women and girls and often lead to higher loss of lives and livelihoods and often result in a gendered negative spiral of vulnerability and poverty, leaving women and girls disproportionately vulnerable to future shocks and crises. Joining forces with ARC will be crucial to ensure that decision makers at the highest level are well informed when planning DRM responses, and that women and girls are at the center of their policies.”
ARC and UNWomen support the approach that knowledge of disaster exposure and vulnerability indexes of women and men to natural disasters will assist in determining key drivers for preparedness and coping capacity towards advancing socioeconomic resilience, better development outcomes, and more sustainable solutions for affected populations.
Notes to Editors:
About ARC Group
African Risk Capacity (ARC) Group consists of ARC Agency and ARC Insurance Company Limited (ARC Ltd). ARC Agency was established in 2012 as a Specialized Agency of the African Union to help the Member States improve their capacities to better plan, prepare and respond to weather-related disasters. ARC Ltd is a mutual insurance facility providing risk transfer services to the Member States through risk pooling and access to reinsurance markets. ARC was established on the principle that investing in preparedness and early warning through an innovative financing approach is highly cost-effective and can save upward of four dollars for every dollar invested ex-ante.
With the support of the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Canada, France, the European Union, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the United States, ARC assists the AU Member States in reducing the risk of loss and damage caused by extreme weather events affecting Africa’s populations by providing, through sovereign disaster risk insurance, targeted responses to natural disasters in a more timely, cost-effective, objective and transparent manner. ARC is now using its expertise to help tackle some of the other most significant threats faced by the continent, including floods and outbreaks & epidemics.
Since 2014, 62 policies have been signed by the Member States for cumulative insurance coverage of US$719 million for the protection of 72 million vulnerable populations in participating countries.
For more information, please visit: www.africanriskcapacity.org/
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About UN Women
UN Women is the United Nations entity dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women. A global champion for women and girls, UN Women was established to accelerate progress on meeting their needs worldwide.UN Women supports UN Member States as they set global standards for achieving gender equality, and works with governments and civil society to design laws, policies, programmes and services needed to ensure that the standards are effectively implemented and truly benefit women and girls worldwide. It works globally to make the vision of the Sustainable Development Goals a reality for women and girls and stands behind women’s equal participation in all aspects of life, focusing on four strategic priorities:
- Women’s leadership and political participation; (2) Women’s economic empowerment; (3) Ending violence against women and girls; and (4) Women’s engagement in peace and security, resilience and humanitarian action.
For more information, please visit: https://africa.unwomen.org
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Twitter: @unwomenafrica
Media Contacts
Chinedu Moghalu | Communications & Advocacy Advisor | African Risk Capacity (ARC) Group |
E-mail: chinedu.moghalu@arc.int
Hawa Diop | Regional Communication Specialist |UN Women| Email: hawa.diop@unwomen.org
Molalet Tsedeke| Media Coordinator | Directorate of Information and Communication, African Union Commission | E-mail: MolaletT@africa-union.org