Multi-year agreement (2018-22): NDMA, UNFPA sign work plan to address GBV, women issues

National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Pakistan Friday signed annual work plan 2018-22 to address issues related to gender based violence (GBV) and protection of women before, during and after disasters. The MoU envisages cooperation between the two organizations for gender mainstreaming, specifically in humanitarian crises, to cater for the needs and concerns of vulnerable groups in the entire disaster risk management (DRM) spectrum. The work plan is part of the multi-year agreement (2018-22) signed between the two entities in December 2017 to address issues of gender based violence and protection of women during, pre and post disasters phases.
Chairman NDMA, Lieutenant General Omar Mehmood Hayat and Country Representative UNFPA-Pakistan, Dr Hassan Mohtashmi, signed the document. While speaking on the occasion the chairman NDMA said that work plan will strengthen capacity building of key government departments to generate evidence for prevention and response to GBV during disasters. "Engaging the government machinery will ensure design, implementation and strengthening of systems and policies that are gender transformative," he added. The NDMA chairman said that during disaster, relief camps remain the centre point of relief and rehabilitation activities wherein across the world many gender based acts of violence or exploitation have been reported. He said many steps have been taken to address such issues and the current one is also related to enhance capacity of NDMA and other stakeholders to effectively address such issues.
He observed that development of guidelines for minimum standards of relief in camps is essential for carrying out relief activities smoothly. He said that such guidelines would prove vital assistance to the provincial and district governments and other relevant stakeholders working in the area of disaster management. The country representative UNFPA-Pakistan, while speaking on the occasion, said the program will address root causes of gender inequality, besides helping to ensure women empowerment and girl/child protection. The program in particular will address social norms and practices which pose structural obstacles and prevent women from making informed decisions on their sexual and reproductive health and rights.
Interventions/activities in the work plan are focused on the preparedness, response and resilience in sexual reproductive health and gender based violence including the development of a minimum initial service package (MSIP) tool to pilot the gender component of Pakistan School Safety Framework (PSSF) in schools across Pakistan. The work plan will support research, knowledge management and capacity building in areas of women resilience in disasters in order to formulate informed interventions and protocols/SOPs to strengthen the multi-sectoral coordination mechanism among public institutions for prevention and response to gender issues in humanitarian and development settings.