CARE Guatemala team responsible for this publication:
Rogelia Soto, Country Representative
Amílcar Mirón, Programs Manager
Lilian López, Identity and Rights Program Manager
UN Women’s Team Responsible for this publication:
Adriana Quiñones, Country Representative
Ana Grace Cabrera, Coordinator for the women’s area, peace, security, justice and humanitarian aid
Zayda Gómez, Humanitarian Aid Consultant
Marisol Garcés, Consultant
1. Introduction
The situation Guatemala faces today is enormously complex. Apart from the conditions of historical inequality and high levels of poverty that mark the country’s reality, since March 2020 Guatemala has had to face the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and recently, the emergencies caused by the ETA and IOTA storms, which have hit a large part of the nation’s territory. The country is in an exceptional emergency situation, and the prevention and response actions have been insufficient for the magnitude of the tragedy.
UN Women and CARE Guatemala, as part of the Gender Working Group in Humanitarian Aid on the Humanitarian Country Team (HCT), consider it essential to provide information that allows us to understand the situation affected populations face. This includes incorporating a gender analysis in which the differentiated impact on women and girls is recognized, identifying their specific needs to strengthen mitigation and recovery efforts, as well as ensuring an effective response that guarantees their rights. This is why Rapid Gender Analyses (RGA) are performed as a tool for directing humanitarian responses to the ETA and IOTA, and within the framework of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The objective of a Rapid Gender Analysis is to identify and analyze the negative influences, needs, and impacts of the emergency generated by Hurricanes ETA and IOTA on the lives of women and girls in Guatemala, and to provide practical recommendations for response and recovery work; covering the areas most affected by the storm and prioritized by CARE and UN Women, which are the departments of Alta Verapaz, Baja Verapaz, Izabal, Chiquimula, Quiché, Huetenango, Jalapa, Zacapa and Petén.
2. Methodology
The RGA is a tool that serves to identify and document the differentiated situation faced by women, men, girls and boys in emergency situations or in humanitarian crises. It helps us see the differences in power, roles, resources, rules, needs, and interests that different people have, how they express themselves, and live. In addition, it allows us to recognize these differences, understand the true impact of the emergency on the population, and then fortify a humanitarian response that meets the different needs based in reality, especially the different needs of women. The RGA study in Guatemala was developed with three methodological axes:
Axis 1: Work with primary sources of information:
Surveys of women, leaders, leaderships, and officials of the Government or NGOs in the territories affected by
Hurricanes ETA and IOTA, were carried out between Friday, November 13 and Wednesday, November 18, through
local interviewers and field visits from UN Women in Petén and Izabal. A total of 106 surveys were conducted (90
women and 16 men). These surveys are not intended to be a statistical sampling, but rather to provide qualitative
information on the situation that all people affected by the emergencies are experiencing.
Axis 2: Search for information from secondary sources:
Statistics were collected from information worked on by Government bodies, such as CONRED, as well as information generated by international humanitarian organizations.
Axis 3: Analysis of primary and secondary information and document construction:
On the basis of a scheme of content for the RGA, an analysis of needs and impacts was conducted.