Humanitarian Action and Disaster Risk Reduction
Asia and the Pacific faces some of the world's most frequent and complex humanitarian crises, including climate-related disasters, displacements, conflict and public health emergencies. These crises are not gender-neutral. Women and girls often face heightened risks to their safety, livelihoods, health and access to essential services, while also being excluded from the decision that shape preparedness, response and recovery.
Disaster risk reduction is central to both humanitarian action and climate resilience. Reducing risks before crises occur, strengthening preparedness and anticipatory action, supporting inclusive response and recovery and building long-term resilience are essential to protecting the rights, dignity and leadership of women and girls.
At a time when humanitarian needs are growing and resources are stretched, UN Women works to ensure that gender equality, women’s leadership and accountability to affected women and girls remain central to effective humanitarian action. Across Asia and the Pacific, UN Women works with governments, women-led and women’s rights organizations, humanitarian actors, United Nations partners and development partners to advance gender-responsive, inclusive and locally led humanitarian action, disaster risk reduction and resilience-building.
How we work
Risk Reduction, Preparedness and Anticipatory Action
UN Women supports governments, regional institutions and humanitarian partners to anticipate, prepare for and reduce the gendered impacts of crises before they occur. This includes developing regional and national pre-crisis gender briefs and gender analyses, providing technical guidance on gender-responsive preparedness and anticipatory action and advancing the implementation of the Gender Action Plan to support the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 (Sendai GAP). Through the WE Respond Dashboard, UN Women also strengthens regional coordination and connects women-led organizations across the region, supporting locally-led and effective preparedness efforts.
Gender-Responsive Response and Recovery
UN Women supports gender-responsive humanitarian response and recovery through its Leadership, Empowerment, Access and Protection in Crisis Response approach. Across Asia Pacific, this means combining technical expertise, gender analysis and coordination support with programmes that expand protection, cash assistance, livelihoods, essential services and leadership opportunities for crisis-affected women and girls. In crisis-affected and displacement settings, including Afghanistan and Pakistan and in the Rohingya refugee response, UN Women works with partners to ensure that humanitarian action is informed by women's rights and priorities, strengthens their agency and supports recovery pathways that build dignity, resilience and accountability.
Women's Leadership and Locally Led Resilience
UN Women works with women-led and women's rights organizations to strengthen their participation, visibility and leadership in humanitarian coordination and disaster risk reduction. This work helps ensure that preparedness, response and recovery efforts are informed by the priorities of affected women and girls, recognize women's organizations as essential crisis responders and resilience actors and support locally led solutions before, during and after crises.
Regional and national coordination and accountability
UN Women strengthens coordination and accountability for gender equality across humanitarian action through its leadership of the Regional Gender in Humanitarian Action (GiHA) Working Group for Asia and the Pacific, technical support to national GiHA working groups and by advancing gender-responsive humanitarian coordination, policy and accountability through the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC).
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