Gender and disaster early warning systems in Bangladesh

In Bangladesh, significant changes in policy and institutional domains with a focus on the decentralization of disaster management of local-level institutions, have been made in the past years. This has contributed to Bangladesh's transformation from the most vulnerable country in South Asia to a resilient one over the last 50 years of disaster management leadership.

However, despite the progress in disaster management, being in a natural disaster-prone geographic location, each year some calamity or other makes gender inclusivity more challenging than the previous year in Bangladesh. Moreover, there remains a lack of focus on preparing and disseminating women-focused early warning messages in the face of disasters that could help women to be better equipped to face the disasters. The relationship between gender and early warning system has, however, received little specialized attention, and there is a shortage of evidence on best practices to ensure disaster early warning system is effective for all people belonging to different socio-economic groups.

To better understand how effective current early warning systems are for the most vulnerable group of women and other marginalized groups in terms of timeliness, accessibility, and usefulness, UN Women conducted research focusing only on current early warning systems for riverine floods and cyclones.