Outcome WCA_D_4.2

More women and girls in West and Central Africa have equitable access to high quality public goods, services, and resources that are responsive to their needs in Peace, Security , Humanitarian and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) settings.

More women and girls in West and Central Africa now have equitable access to high-quality public goods, services, and resources that are responsive to their specific needs in Peace, Security, Humanitarian, and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) settings. Through UN Women’s efforts, women’s organizations across the Sahel have participated in training sessions designed to enhance their roles in humanitarian architecture. These sessions prioritized the development of women’s leadership in humanitarian responses and emphasized their inclusion in the structures of the humanitarian country teams. As a direct result of these initiatives, women and girls who are members of UN Women-supported organizations in Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Chad have gained access to essential information on funding opportunities for their organizations. This achievement highlights UN Women's significant contributions to fostering inclusion, leadership, and empowerment across the region, ensuring that women and girls are key participants in shaping humanitarian and disaster response systems.

More women and girls in West and Central Africa have equitable access to high quality public goods, services, and resources that are responsive to their needs in Peace, Security , Humanitarian and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) settings.

As consequence of the capacity building initiative of Gender & DRR atelier carried out at regional level in Dakar (UN WOMEN Nov 2022), in which public institutions (gender and women ministry), Women Led Organisations and women organisation working in the sector, more women and girls, will be benefited from targeted gendered policies, risks preventions, action plans taking into consideration gender needs, the mainstreaming of gender and engagements made by these stake holders in their respective countries to improve access of women and girls to public and basis services. Practitioners on disaster risk reduction (DRR), disaster risk management (DRM) and climate change (CC) has been also aware about the need for gender-sensitive and inclusive DRR strategies and mechanisms in their countries and regions , including the global and regional frameworks (Sendai Framework, Africa Action Plan, ECOWAS Strategy for DRR and CCA). With the application of these national and regional frameworks at the institutional level, women and girls will have better or improved access to basic services and prevention mechanism on DRR, peace and security, and protection .

More women and girls in West and Central Africa have equitable access to high quality public goods, services, and resources that are responsive to their needs in Peace, Security , Humanitarian and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) settings.

WCARO adopted the following specific strategies aiming to improve women's access to humanitarian response: establisment of group of expert on gender and humanitarian action ( GIHA Group) in the region, advocacy , capacity building of key humanitarian actors, and specific support to women's organizations. UN Women has focused on building skills and providing tools to humanitarian actors (government Ministries, NGOs, regional women’s networks and platforms, women led organizations, Humanitarian Country Teams (HCTs), UN agencies) to enable them to integrate gender in the design of interventions several countries in West and Central Africa. In Niger under the leadership of the Humanitarian Gender Theme Group, a Gender Alert highlighted the effects of sanctions by sub-regional bodies (ECOWAS and the West African Monetary and Economic Union (UEMOA) on women and girls after the military coup as a contribution to the UN’s dialogue on limiting the negative impact of the sanctions on humanitarian assistance in the country. UN Women in partnership with NorCap is currently supporting women's organizations that are working on humanitarian and disaster risk reduction issues in the Sahel region. UNWOMEN created space for them to interact with key decision makers and present their priorities and some solutions to different crisis particularly in the context of transition. UN Women coordinates the Regional and national Gender and Humanitarian Groups which include 30 experts from main international agencies and NGOs working in the humanitarian field A group of 20 women have developped their expertise on gender and DRR and influence through advocacy different DRR processes at the national and regional level including the AU GRoup on DRR