{"id":30929,"date":"2017-03-16T11:00:56","date_gmt":"2017-03-16T00:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=30929"},"modified":"2017-03-24T15:21:32","modified_gmt":"2017-03-24T04:21:32","slug":"wps-agenda-must-also-responsive-natural-disasters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/wps-agenda-must-also-responsive-natural-disasters\/","title":{"rendered":"The WPS agenda must also be responsive to natural disasters"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This article is part of a series on \u2018Women, Peace and Security\u2019 that <\/em>The Strategist\u00a0is publishing\u00a0in recognition of International Women\u2019s Day 2017.<\/em><\/p>\n

When Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, and her Labor counterpart, Penny Wong, visited Samoa, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu in December, emergency response was at the forefront of the agenda. Disaster response is a key priority of regional humanitarian action; most crises in the Indo-Pacific<\/a> were the result of natural disasters, and from 2005-2014 natural disasters affected 1.4 billion people<\/a> in the Asia Pacific region, 80% of the global total.<\/p>\n

But there is another key statistic here: the impact on women<\/a>. Women are more likely to die<\/a> during disasters, and incidence of sexual and gender-based violence spikes in post-disaster settings<\/a>. So any strategy for women, peace and security (WPS) in the region must incorporate humanitarian response.<\/p>\n

WPS is founded in UNSC Resolution 1325 and targets the disproportionate and unique harm suffered by women and girls during and after times of conflict. Australia formalised its commitment to Resolution 1325 and its subsequent resolutions\u2014collectively the WPS Agenda\u2014through the establishment of a WPS National Action Plan (NAP) in 2012. (Read Susan Hutchinson\u2019s assessment of the first NAP here<\/a>). The 2015 UN global study<\/a> on the implementation of UNSCR 1325 identified women\u2019s vulnerability in humanitarian-settings as an emerging theme in WPS. Recognising that \u2018principles of gender equality in humanitarian assistance are not limited to conflict-affected settings but equally relevant to natural disasters\u2019, the study provided the impetus to expand WPS beyond the traditional parameters of armed-conflict. The Independent Interim Review<\/a> of Australia\u2019s NAP raised the possibility of expanding WPS action to include humanitarian response.<\/p>\n

Disaster relief should be treated as a WPS issue for two reasons.<\/p>\n

First, the disruption caused by natural disasters is analogous to armed conflict, and the security issues facing women in the two contexts overlap, because:<\/p>\n