Attachments
1. Background
1.1 Protecting human rights and promoting gender equality must be central to humanitarian action. The needs of women, men, girls and boys are different and distinct, and often these differences are even more disparate during humanitarian crises. Addressing gender equality during a humanitarian crisis means planning and implementing humanitarian programming fully taking into account the specific needs of different groups in a community. In spite of an increased awareness within the humanitarian community, there is a growing body of evidence indicating that gender equality is still inadequately and inconsistently integrated within sectoral programme cycles in humanitarian responses.
1.2 As such, there has been an increasing effort to better advance gender equality and strengthen participation of affected people in humanitarian programming, taking full account of their differentiated needs. This is supported by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) 2008 Policy Statement on Gender Equality, the IASC Gender and Humanitarian Action Guidelines and the IASC GBV Guidelines, among others. The need to improve gender equality and empowerment of women is linked to human rights-based approaches to our humanitarian–development continuum programming.
1.3 Despite these increased efforts in terms of advocacy and policy development, there remains a lack of coherence around the practical implementation of these activities at field level. As a consequence, there is a risk of failing to optimize the significant expertise and experience within the Asia-Pacific region related to gender in humanitarian action, as well as the opportunities presented by disaster preparedness and response, which could be more effectively and efficiently drawn upon by advancing this work collectively.
1.4 The IASC Regional Network (IASC RN) at the Directors’ meeting held in Bangkok on 21 October 2014 endorsed the proposal to set up an informal working group to support and guide the work of the in-coming Regional Gender Adviser (GenCap ). Agreement on establishing the Working Group was reached at a workshop on Coordinating Regional Capacity Building on Gender Responsive Humanitarian Action in the Asia-Pacific held in Bangkok 8-9 December 2014. A time-bound working group, housed under the IASC RN, was established to support the work of the Regional Gender Adviser in developing a plan of action.
1.5 During the first three months of functioning the membership of the Working Group on Gender in Humanitarian Action (WG/GiHA) expanded and the group jointly identified a number of key objectives that would benefit from a concerted, inter-agency focus. The present terms of reference therefore relate to the follow up on these activities over an extended timeframe for the WG/GiHA between April and December 2015.
1.6 Participation in the WG/GiHA is open to all interested humanitarian organisations, bringing together NGOs, UN, IOM, Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement and other international organisations. For practical purposes the WG/GiHA primarily comprises gender specialists or focal points from regional offices, either Bangkok-based or from other locations in the Region who contribute through virtual participation via Skype/teleconference.
1.7 The WG/GiHA will work in closely with the Regional Emergency GBV Advisor (REGA) and with the group working on cross-cutting issues to ensure consistency and coordinated approaches.