掲載日：2015/02/05
Now there are less than 40 days until the UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR), which will be held in Sendai, Japan. Unfortunately there has not been much media coverage of this Conference, even though it is a very important one for disaster-prone Japan.
The first WCDRR was held in Yokohama, and the second one was held 10 years ago in Kobe and now the third WCDRR will be held in Sendai. I sincerely hope that Japan, as the host country of all 3 WCDRRs, will take a leadership role as a country with vast experiences of disasters and how to reduce disaster risk.
Since 3.11 we have urged the Japanese national and local governments to comprehensively include gender perspectives in their policies and to ensure that women can participate in decision-making at all levels. Many women’s groups joined in petitioning different members of governments on this issue. As a result of these activities, legislative reforms were carried out such as the Disaster Countermeasure Basic Act, which in turn resulted in concrete changes such as increases in the number of women members of national and municipal level disaster management committees. But there is still a long way to go before gender or diversity perspectives can be said to be mainstreamed.
There are also calls to strengthen women’s capacities regarding disasters. We are told that even if employers want to appoint a woman to a leadership position, there are no women available. The importance of training programs is thus being advocated. The most important mission is to mainstream gender perspectives in DRR policy, but in order to achieve this, training for policy-makers and local officials, for community leaders and leaders of women’s groups as well as for grassroots citizens, is essential. This is why we are developing a training initiative that can be used around the world.
We will be holding a Public Forum in Sendai titled “Women as a Force for Change ~Gender and Disaster Risk Reduction~” We have invited international specialists and we hope to have a lively discussion on gender mainstreaming and the training initiative, which we will compile into a policy proposal. We are looking forward to your participation!