Gender analyses have illuminated the gender dimensions of disaster management in three key areas: adaptive capacities, policy planning and gendered vulnerabilities. This CAI paper explores the importance of gender mainstreaming initiatives in post-disaster policy planning and adaptation to climate change, and the role that social norms and gender relations play in shaping vulnerabilities in the face of natural hazards, such as Mozambique’s floods.

More often than desired the images promoted of women in disasters by non-governmental organisations (NGO’s) and the media draw on their socially constructed roles as mothers, victims and beneficiaries. This framing not only contributes to obscuring their active role as disaster managers and the unpaid economy of care in the field,⁽²⁾ but also forecloses the discussion on women’s contribution to policy making and knowledge production on disaster management.

Representation of women at international conferences concerning climate change issues and disaster management has historically been minimal.⁽³⁾ Since 1998, 39% of seats in the Assembly of the Republic have been held by women in Mozambique,⁽⁴⁾ a Ministry for Women and Social Action (MWSA) was created in 2005 and a Gender Policy established in 2006. Nevertheless, this plurality has not translated into deep changes in disaster management policies. In particular, Mozambique’s competing sectoral interests, such as agriculture, hydro-energy, industry and environmental protection, have been said to leave poor political clout to mainstream gender issues in flood management.⁽⁵⁾

For instance, the National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) to climate change, which was adopted by the Mozambican Ministry for the Co-ordination of Environmental Affairs in 2007 with a special emphasis on flood management, does not mention gender inequalities at any point. Nevertheless, gender issues could be relevant for the sections of context, risk and barriers and implementation, which identify the broader policy context of every single project and action proposed.⁽⁶⁾ None of the activities proposed deal either explicitly or implicitly with gender roles and responsibilities. In this sense, actions such as “Strengthening capacities of agricultural producers to cope with climate change’’ could include explicit reference to the role and knowledge of women and men in farming, as projects such as ‘Gender, Biodiversity and Local Knowledge Systems’ did in the past.⁽⁷⁾ Equally, actions such as “Management of water resources” or “Reduction of climate change impacts in coastal zones”⁽⁸⁾ could study the roles of men and women in managing water resources, or the differential impact on their livelihoods and coping strategies.

Moreover, neither the objectives of each of the projects nor their expected results include gender-disaggregated indicators. Similarly, the budget assigned for every activity is not sex-disaggregated, despite recent efforts by national gender advisors to mainstream Gender-Responsive Budgets into the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Planning and Development and the Ministry of the Interior.⁽⁹⁾

In order to correct this deficit, both academics and activists are calling for the need to mainstream gender in disaster management throughout all the stages of the policy cycle, including identification, preparation, appraisal, implementation and evaluation. In this context, the absence of gender analyses, sex-disaggregated data and gender-responsive indicators of benefits and impact have been identified as key shortfalls to correct.⁽¹⁰⁾

As exemplified with the NAPA and in the case of all the floods experienced up to 2013, policy plans have not included detailed information on relevant groups such as vulnerable men and women, their dependants, their sources of livelihood with regards to gender roles and the consequently differential impact of floods on their livelihoods.⁽¹¹⁾ Furthermore, in those cases where it has been included, monitoring and evaluation reports do not consider sex-disaggregated results in a systematic way, a phenomenon that academics have denominated ‘gender policy evaporation’.⁽¹²⁾ Furthermore, neither has promoted the dissemination of information and good practices or changes in organisational procedures.⁽¹³⁾

Despite these limitations, the latest initiatives have incipiently included a gender-sensitive approach to adaptive planning to climate change. For example, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Mozambique Government have included gender as a cross-cutting issue in the new Climate Change Adaptation Action and Mainstreaming project of 2009-2011 (CCA). Among others, the CCA suggests the need to generate gender-disaggregated, quality and quantitative data to show the specific vulnerabilities of women and men in the face of climate change. Similarly, it seeks to spur research and the creation of tools to integrate climate change finance and gender equality. Lastly, the CCA recommends the empowerment of women and men at a community level with regards to climate change issues and to boost women’s and gender issues’ presence in community-based disaster planning, dissemination of information units and early-warning systems.⁽¹⁴⁾

One of the main merits highlighted by academics and activists, both from the NAPA and the CCA, is its participatory, inclusionary and bottom-up design. This unique methodology has made possible the identification of existing local coping strategies and context-specific priorities.⁽¹⁵⁾ Hence, this kind of decentralised and participatory approaches offers the possibility for stakeholders to include women’s and men’s differential local practices and indigenous knowledge.

An enhanced women’s presence in decision making and knowledge production would assist to better cope with the effects of climate change. For example, given women’s socially assigned responsibilities, such as water collection in Mozambique, their knowledge on availability of water resources could bring added value to resource management equips and design of community-based adaptive solutions.⁽¹⁶⁾ Beyond these benefits, the resilience of communities would be improved, and more importantly, the inclusion of gender issues could prevent climate change and its derived policy responses from reinforcing gender disparities in the long term.

As explained in Part 1, using monetary poverty as a proxy for vulnerability may ignore factors such as social norms and gender relations which inform the uneven capabilities of women and men to cope with the natural hazard and recover after it.⁽¹⁷⁾ Hence, it has been recognised by the academia and increasing numbers of policy-makers that gender expectations and socially-constructed roles shape men’s and women’s behaviours, and therefore vulnerabilities, when facing a disaster.

Gendered expectations, gendered vulnerabilities

Different processes of socialisation and allocation of gender roles and responsibilities may explain women’s and men’s uneven skills to cope with floods.⁽¹⁸⁾ In fact, female mobility restrictions or the importance of informal income-generating activities in the residential area⁽¹⁹⁾ may uniquely determine women’s risks during floods. Qualitative evidence points out that during 2000 and 2013, women from the southern provinces were disproportionately affected by flooding. Given their dominance in agriculture and the informal economy, and the great prevalence of female-headed households in the region, most women remained in near-home farmlands or close trading areas.⁽²⁰⁾ Meanwhile, male over-representation in migrant flows to Maputo and South Africa⁽²¹⁾ explain men’s absence from their village or country when the floods occurred.⁽²²⁾

Nonetheless, given a relational and intersectional perspective of gender, not only perceptions of feminised risk should be taken into account, but also how notions of masculinity may shape men’s risks, capabilities, and priorities when facing a disaster. ⁽²³⁾For instance, men may be expected to enact risky behaviours in the face of danger, and then, become more likely to suffer injures or loss of life.⁽²⁴⁾ This was the case of many men in Zambezia Province during the 2013 floods. Men coming from rural settlements were under-represented in accommodation centres (only 20% of the total), since most of them decided to return to their communities of origin to salvage harvest remains from the family’s crop fields.⁽²⁵⁾ Needless to say, this behaviour rendered them vulnerable to multiple risks associated with floods, such as damaged roads and bridges, or landslides.

Following an analysis of the intersections of gender with other axes of social inequality, special attention needs to be paid to the urban poor living in peri-urban areas of Mozambique. This is the case of Maputo’s slums, where unplanned human settlements have proliferated and reached the low lands with higher flood risk. The major hazards faced by the urban poor of Maputo are the lack of resources to drain out water after floods, and the vulnerability to diseases.⁽²⁶⁾ Moreover, the lack of shelter or use of temporary flimsy tents may trigger specific gendered vulnerabilities, such as women’s and girls’ exposure to sexual violence,⁽²⁷⁾ not only in temporary accommodation centres, but also in urban peripheries. As a response, a Protection Cluster (PC) in coordination with the MWSA was set up temporarily both after 2007 and 2013 floods. Nevertheless, urban poor vulnerabilities were hardly addressed, since the both clusters focused on identifying gender needs in resettlement centres,⁽²⁸⁾ and surveillance responses such as police regular rounds were exclusively implemented in displacement sites.⁽²⁹⁾

The gendered division of responsibilities: Women as risk managers

A gender analysis of post-floods Mozambique should consider the different responsibilities and associated vulnerabilities enacted by individuals by virtue of their gender. In post-disaster relief, tasks usually are allocated along the lines of the gendered division of labour. Hence, literature on disasters has underscored men’s participation in activities such as rescue, debris removal and night patrolling.⁽³⁰⁾

Unfortunately, no report by the Mozambican Government, humanitarian partners or the academia gives account of men’s role in post-disaster Mozambique. Not only does it reflect the difficulties to mainstream gender relations in governmental and international organisations but it also shows Gender and Development professionals’ reluctance to incorporate men into policy, given the possibility of losing political momentum on gender gaps or losing the scarce funds secured for women.⁽³¹⁾

Whereas women from the Gaza Province have been traditionally in charge of largely unpaid and often socially invisible works such as cooking, cleaning and fetching water and wood, these tasks have been reinforced after floods.⁽³²⁾ Flooding may increase the burden of women to collect water and wood by having to travel longer distances for longer periods of time, often forcing girls to drop out of school and increasing women’s time burden.⁽³³⁾ For example, a study of two rural communities in the Gaza Province has reported that the distances for water and firewood collection (2-4 km and 1-2 km, respectively)have increased in the past few years due to environmental degradation.⁽³⁴⁾

Further, women often see their daily care giving responsibilities increased, together with new rehabilitation voluntary tasks, such as taking care of children and the injured, cleaning the shelter, washing clothes, and queuing for food supplies.⁽³⁵⁾ Women’s roles as risk managers add to already existing productive and reproductive work, generating time poverty and constraining their opportunities to contribute to community level decision-making processes on climate change adaptation.

Gendered health risks and coping strategies

Last but not least, disasters may differentially expose men and women to diseases. On the one hand, during and after a disaster, specific health needs may flourish, such as women’s reproductive infections, unwanted abortions or unexpected deliveries.⁽³⁶⁾ For instance, the UN recalls the story of Hortência, a Mozambican woman from the Gaza Province affected by the 2013 floods, who eventually gave birth on the roof of a neighbouring house. In response to this kind of circumstance, the Ministries of Health and Women and Social Affairs in partnership with UNFPA distributed 3,000 dignity and reproductive health kits.⁽³⁷⁾

On the other hand, natural hazards may impact women’s and men’s livelihoods differently, which can further trigger differential health outcomes. During the last decade, the enhanced intensity and frequency of cyclones and related increase of the sea level has threa tened Mozambique’s coastal fishing economies, such as Xai-Xai city. As a consequence, many men have lost their jobs and breadwinning role. Together with the impact of material and emotional loss, socially condoned ways to express frustration and grief after disasters have led, in some cases, to increased consumption of alcohol.⁽³⁸⁾ Nevertheless, this change on consumption patterns has been further related to gender dynamics in the labour market – that is, women’s great presence in the informal economy, and in particular, in local petty trade.⁽³⁹⁾ In this sense, coping strategies of women from the Gaza Province have included the production of illegal liquor and its commercialisation.⁽⁴⁰⁾

In other cases, coping strategies have involved temporary migratory male flows to South Africa in search of new sources of income.⁽⁴¹⁾ Furthermore, many women from rural South Mozambique have moved to urban centres such as Maputo or Matola to work as domestic employees,⁽⁴²⁾ or have relied on informal cross border trade to South Africa, Swaziland and Malawi for survival.⁽⁴³⁾ The presence of two high-traffic transport corridors in the south, which link Maputo with Johannesburg and Mbabane respectively, has facilitated internal and external mobility in the region.⁽⁴⁴⁾

In a country that currently displays an HIV prevalence of 11.3%,⁽⁴⁵⁾ qualitative research undertaken by the International Organisation for Migration and the UNDP has concluded that the border towns along the corridors have been traditionally characterised by high levels of sex work and transactional sex.⁽⁴⁶⁾ Hence, post-disaster migratory trends have rendered men and women from South Mozambique particularly vulnerable to sexually-transmitted diseases and HIV in particular, due to the adoption of survivalist practices⁽⁴⁷⁾ or casual sex encounters between migrants transiting to Swaziland or South Africa.⁽⁴⁸⁾ Both Xai-Xai labour market dynamics and South Mozambique migratory trends show that, as a result of disaster’s impact on men’s and women’s livelihoods, the different coping strategies developed can severely impact women and men’s physical and mental health.

Concluding remarks

By providing a comprehensive overview of the key contributions of gender analyses to disaster management, this CAI paper has intended to provide an insight into the gender dimensions of post-disaster relief and planning often overlooked by national and international policy makers.

First of all, the need to mainstream gender issues in policy planning and knowledge production with regards to post-disaster management has been underscored. By analysing the Mozambican NAPA and its shortfalls, and by signalling the possibilities that the new CCA offers, future paths of improvement have been highlighted.

In this sense, national and international stakeholders should encourage the production of sex-disaggregated data and gender-responsive indicators of benefits and impact, as well as develop detailed information on men’s and women’s sources of livelihood and differential coping strategies in the face of disasters. Further, in order to avoid processes of ‘gender policy evaporation’, gender mainstreaming should also be promoted along monitoring and evaluation stages, as well as encouraged in organisational internal procedures.

Drawing upon illustrations of post-floods Mozambique, the second part of this article has attempted to flesh out the notion of gendered vulnerabilities by exploring the role of gender expectations and masculinities, the division of relief responsibilities along the gendered division of labour and the nexus between gendered health risks and coping strategies. In addition, research gaps have been identified, such as the lack of knowledge on men’s relief tasks in post-floods Mozambique.

If, as it is commonly accepted, post-disaster relief opens a window of opportunity to transform societies, gender relations should not be dismissed from the policy response. The inclusion of gender issues becomes paramount not only to build up communities’ resilience, but also to prevent that climate change and its subsequent policy responses reinforce gender disparities in the-long term.

Written by Cristina Rovira Izquierdo ⁽¹⁾

Click here for Part I

NOTES:

(1) Cristina Rovira Izquierdo is a political scientist and ‘La Caixa’ scholarship holder expert on international development and social policy initiatives with a focus on gender issues. Contact Cristina through Consultancy Africa Intelligence's Gender Issues Unit ( gender.issues@consultancyafrica.com). Edited by Kate Morgan.
(2) See next section Disaster management through gender lens: Gendered vulnerabilities and needs, and in particular, the sub-section The gendered division of labour and responsibilities.
(3) Demetriades, J. and Esplen, E., 2008. The gender dimensions of poverty and climate change adaptation. IDS Bulletin, 39(4), pp. 24-31; Habtezion, Z., ‘Gender and adaptation’, United Nations Development Programme and Global Gender and Climate Alliance,  Gender and Climate Change Capacity development series, Training Module 2, 2012, http://www.gender-climate.org.
(4) World Bank World Development Indicators website, http://data.worldbank.org.
(5) Ribeiro, N. and Chaúque, A., ‘Gender and climate change: Mozambique case study’, Heinrich Böll Stiftung Foundation Southern Africa, 2010, http://www.boell.de; Hussein, M.H. and Husain, T., ‘Integrated water resources management—implications for Mozambique’, The Gender and Water Alliance, www.genderandwater.org.
(6) ‘National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA)’, Ministry for the Co-ordination of Environmental Affairs, 4 December 2007, http://unfccc.int.
(7)  See Part 1.
(8) See ‘Proposed Actions’ section, from page 26 onwards in the ‘National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA)’, Ministry for the Co-ordination of Environmental Affairs, 4 December 2007, http://unfccc.int.
(9) ‘Country focus: Mozambique: Applying GRB to respond to women's health needs: Interview with Francelina Romao, Gender Advisor in the Mozambique Ministry of Health’, UNIFEM, March 2010, http://www.gender-budgets.org.
(10) Moser, C. and Moser, A., 2005. Gender mainstreaming since Beijing: A review of success and limitations in international institutions. Gender and Development, 13(2), pp. 11-22.
(11) Hussein, M.H. and Husain, T., ‘Integrated water resources management—implications for Mozambique’, The Gender and Water Alliance, www.genderandwater.org; Habtezion, Z., ‘Gender and adaptation’, United Nations Development Programme and Global Gender and Climate Alliance, Gender and Climate Change Capacity development series, Training Module 2,  2012, http://www.gender-climate.org.
(12) Longwe, S.H., 1997. The evaporation of gender policies in the patriarchal cooking pot. Development in Practice, 7(2), pp. 148-156.
(13) Hussein, M.H. and Husain, T., ‘Integrated water resources management—implications for Mozambique’, The Gender and Water Alliance, www.genderandwater.org; Habtezion, Z., ‘Gender and adaptation’, United Nations Development Programme and Global Gender and Climate Alliance, Gender and Climate Change Capacity development series, Training Module 2,  2012, http://www.gender-climate.org.
(14) ‘Project document. Africa Adaptation Programme. Climate Change Adaptation Action and Mainstreaming in Mozambique’, Government of Mozambique and United Nations Development Programme, 2009, http://www.undp.org.
(15) Blythe, J., ‘Hits and misses in Mozambique’s climate change action plans’, Africa Portal, 4 May 2012, http://www.africaportal.org.
(16) Ribeiro, N. and Chaúque, A., ‘Gender and climate change: Mozambique case study’, Heinrich Böll Stiftung Foundation Southern Africa, 2010, http://www.boell.de; Habtezion, Z., ‘Gender and adaptation’, United Nations Development Programme and Global Gender and Climate Alliance, Gender and Climate Change Capacity development series, Training Module 2,  2012, http://www.gender-climate.org.
(17) Bradshaw, S., 2010. “Women, poverty and disasters: Exploring the links through Hurricane Mitch in Nicaragua”, in Chant, S. (eds.). The international handbook of gender and poverty. Edward Elgar: Cheltenham.
(18) Pincha, C., 2008. Gender sensitive disaster management. A toolkit for practitioners. Earthworm Books: Mumbai.
(19) Oruwari, Y., 1991. The changing role of women in families and their housing needs: A case study of Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Environment and Urbanization, 3(2), pp. 6-12.
(20) Hussein, M.H. and Husain, T., ‘Integrated water resources management—implications for Mozambique’, The Gender and Water Alliance, www.genderandwater.org; Tvedten, I., Paulo, M. and Tuominen, M., ‘Gender and poverty in Mozambique’, CMI, October 2010, http://www.cmi.no; De Vletter, F., ‘Migration and development in Mozambique: Poverty, inequality and survival’, Southern Africa Migration Project, http://www.queensu.ca.
(21) In fact, Mozambican male migrants make up 25% of the South African goldmines’ workforce, whereas they represented 10% in 1990. This source of wage employment is particularly important for the rural south, such as Chowke, which has 55% of males engaged in waged employment in South Africa, from which 75% are currently labelled as ‘absentee workers’. De Vletter, F., ‘Migration and development in Mozambique: Poverty, inequality and survival’, Southern Africa Migration Project, http://www.queensu.ca.
(22) Given the deficits pointed out in the previous section, no sex-disaggregated data exists beyond qualitative accounts of the floods’ consequences. Hussein, M.H. and Husain, T., ‘Integrated water resources management—implications for Mozambique’, The Gender and Water Alliance, www.genderandwater.org.
(23) Demetriades, J. and Esplen, E., 2008. The gender dimensions of poverty and climate change adaptation. IDS Bulletin, 39(4), pp. 24-31.
(24) Pincha, C., 2008. Gender sensitive disaster management. A toolkit for practitioners. Earthworm Books: Mumbai.
(25) ‘Mozambique floods 2013. Consolidated early recovery strategy’, United Nations Resident Coordinator's Office in Mozambique, 25 April 2013, http://reliefweb.int.
(26) ‘Climate change assessment for Maputo, Mozambique: A summary’, UN-HABITAT, Cities and Climate Change Initiative, 2010, http://www.unhabitat.org.
(27) Pincha, C., 2008. Gender sensitive disaster management. A toolkit for practitioners. Earthworm Books: Mumbai.
(28) ‘Mozambique floods’, UN country team in Mozambique, 18 January 2008, http://reliefweb.int; ‘Mozambique floods 2013. Consolidated early recovery strategy’, United Nations Resident Coordinator's Office in Mozambique, 25 April 2013, http://reliefweb.int.
(29) ‘Mozambique floods 2013. Response and recovery proposal’, World Food Programme and UN country team in Mozambique, 31 January 2013, http://reliefweb.int.
(30) Pincha, C., 2008. Gender sensitive disaster management. A toolkit for practitioners. Earthworm Books: Mumbai.
(31) Chant, S. and Gutmann, M.C., 2002. ‘Men-streaming’ gender? Questions for gender and development policy in the twenty-first century. Progress in Development Studies, 2(4), pp. 269-282.
(32) Pincha, C., 2008. Gender sensitive disaster management. A toolkit for practitioners. Earthworm Books: Mumbai; Tvedten, I., Paulo, M. and Tuominen, M., ‘Gender and poverty in Mozambique’, CMI, October 2010, http://www.cmi.no.
(33) Habtezion, Z., ‘Gender and adaptation’, United Nations Development Programme and Global Gender and Climate Alliance,  Gender and Climate Change Capacity development series, Training Module 2,  2012, http://www.gender-climate.org.
(34) Ribeiro, N. and Chaúque, A., ‘Gender and climate change: Mozambique case study’, Heinrich Böll Stiftung Foundation Southern Africa, 2010, http://www.boell.de.
(35) Enarson, E., ‘Gender equality, work, and disaster reduction: Making the connections’, The Gender and Disaster Sourcebook, 2002, http://www.gdnonline.org.
(36) Pincha, C., 2008. Gender sensitive disaster management. A toolkit for practitioners. Earthworm Books: Mumbai.
(37) Miguel, A., ‘UN responds to floods in Mozambique’, UN Mozambique, 8 February 2013, http://mz.one.un.org.
(38) ‘Project document. Africa Adaptation Programme. Climate Change Adaptation Action and Mainstreaming in Mozambique’, Government of Mozambique and United Nations Development Programme, 2009, http://www.undp.org; Pincha, C., 2008. Gender sensitive disaster management. A toolkit for practitioners. Earthworm Books: Mumbai.
(39) Tvedten, I., Paulo, M. and Tuominen, M., ‘Gender and poverty in Mozambique’, CMI, October 2010, http://www.cmi.no.
(40) Zvomuya, F., ‘Mozambique's climate-hit rural women “hope for the best, plan for the worst”’, Thomson Reuters Foundation, 10 November 2010, http://www.trust.org; Ribeiro, N. and Chaúque, A., ‘Gender and climate change: Mozambique case study’, Heinrich Böll Stiftung Foundation Southern Africa, 2010, http://www.boell.de.
(41) See Gendered expectations, gendered vulnerabilities subsection.
(42) Although the IOM has reported that there is no data available to verify the number of people working as domestic workers in Mozambique. ‘Regional assessment on HIV-prevention needs of migrants and mobile populations in Southern Africa’, International Organisation for Migration, February 2010, http://iom.org.za; De Vletter, F., ‘Migration and development in Mozambique: Poverty, inequality and survival’, Southern Africa Migration Project, http://www.queensu.ca.
(43) ‘Briefing note on HIV and labour migration in Mozambique’, International Organisation for Migration Regional Office for Southern Africa, 2007, http://www.iom.int.
(44) ‘International Organization for Migration Mozambique Situation Report’, International Organization for Migration, Report January-June 2013, http://www.iom.int.
(45) UNAIDS Mozambique website, http://www.unaids.org.
(46) ‘International Organization for Migration Mozambique Situation Report’, International Organization for Migration, Report January-June 2013, http://www.iom.int.
(47) ‘Project document. Africa Adaptation Programme. Climate Change Adaptation Action and Mainstreaming in Mozambique’, Government of Mozambique and United Nations Development Programme, 2009, http://www.undp.org.
(48) ‘HIV and AIDS in emergency response – Mozambique flood/cyclone response’, Shelter Cluster report, 2013, www.sheltercluster.org.