LocationsWomen driving disaster preparedness and resilience
March 8, 2026
Women in Bangladesh receive training on early-warning, search-and-rescue, and first-aid equipment.
Mira Sarker grew up by the Kapotaksha River in southern Bangladesh. Her earliest childhood memories include the whirlwind of cyclones, disasters, and frequent displacement. Living near the coast, life has remained challenging for her and her community. In the last three decades, the country has been hit by over 200 natural hazards.
Extreme weather events like the ones Mira witnessed are becoming more severe and frequent. Globally, disasters cause around $202 billion in direct losses every year, and when wider economic and ecosystem impacts are included, the true cost rises to nearly $2.3 trillion annually. Out of the 65.8 million people displaced within their own countries in 2024, 45.8 million were the result of disasters.
Women and girls are often disproportionately affected, facing greater risks to their safety, health and livelihoods. Displacement and the loss of homes or income can increase exposure to gender-based violence, and disrupt access to health services and education. As families struggle to cope with floods, storms and droughts, women are forced to assume unpaid care responsibilities. They often face constraints in accessing land and finance, and in some cases have limited access to early warning information, delaying response and recovery.
Despite these pressures, women continue to step forward – organizing preparedness efforts, strengthening resilience and reducing risks, guiding evacuations and emergency response, and helping rebuild lives and livelihoods after disasters.
Women and girls are disproportionately affected by the impacts of disasters.
Preparing communities before disasters strike
Effective preparedness depends on communication, trust and local coordination. Women’s engagement ensures that disaster risk reduction measures reach entire communities and translate into timelyaction.
In the Philippines, efforts to strengthen disaster preparedness are being scaled up through the Strengthening Institutions and Empowering Localities against Disasters and Climate Change (SHIELD) Programme. Within this larger effort, women are playing an increasingly vital role.
After surviving Super Typhoon Yolanda in the town of Salcedo in Eastern Samar province, Felisa Ramasa Castro became a community leader, establishing a women-led organization that supports disaster preparedness. The group works closely with local authorities, supports awareness and preparedness activities, and contributes to capacity-building efforts, including on gender-based violence.
“Every time there is an impending typhoon, we already know what to do next,” Felisa explains. “We assess the information from the radio and our Early Warning Early Response (EWER) mechanism.”
Felisa Ramasa Castro from the Philippines leads a women-led organization that supports disaster preparedness.
Strengthening resilience, reducing risks
Strengthening resilience and reducing disaster risks requires addressing the underlying drivers of vulnerability. Restoring natural ecosystems is one of the most effective ways to reduce the impacts hazards and extreme weather events, especially for coastal communities.
In the Bahamas, mangrove restoration is helping rebuild one of the country’s most important coastal defences. Jewel Beneby, a conservation practitioner working on the initiative, explains, “mangrove ecosystems are among the most important environments in The Bahamas. They form the foundation of our marine life, support livelihoods, and serve as our first line of defence when hurricanes and storms hit.”
These efforts. supported by the Small Grants Programme, have mobilized 500 community volunteers, a near equal number of men and women working side by side, to replant more than 220,000 mangroves.
Through nature-based solutions, young women like Jewel are helping reduce disaster risks long before storms arrive, while protecting the livelihoods and ecosystems on which coastal communities depend.
Mangroves provide a natural defence against coastal flooding, and are an important source of livelihoods like fisheries.
Jewel Beneby, a conservation practitioner restoring Bahamas’ mangroves.
Advancing planning and emergency response
In the aftermath of large-scale disasters, coordinated response and recovery planning are essential to stabilizing communities and restore essential services. Women are increasingly contributing to these efforts, helping ensure that response systems are inclusive, responsive and grounded in community needs.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, women are playing an active role in strengthening emergency response systems, participating in multi-agency exercises bringing together civil protection services, health workers, police and firefighters to test evacuation procedures, rescue operations and medical response. These trainings have also strengthened the capacity of emergency responders to address sexual and reproductive health needs and prevent gender-based violence in emergency settings – critical but often overlooked aspects of disaster response.
A similar approach in Armenia has seen women actively engage in community-level disaster risk assessments and contingency planning, working alongside local authorities and civil society organizations to ensure that early warning systems, response plans and risk mitigation measures reflect the specific needs of women, children and vulnerable households.
Women are at the forefront of driving community resilience in Armenia.
Shaping safer futures
In southern Bangladesh, Mira Sarker is learning to adapt. She is among the 337,103 women in coastal regions who are strengthening resilience in their communities by adopting climate-resilient livelihoods and improving water security. With training and support, they are raising salinity-tolerant crops, farming fish and crabs, and securing safe drinking water – allowing communities to become resilient and recover faster after disasters.
Across disaster-prone regions, women are contributing their knowledge, skills and leadership to preparedness, response and recovery. As climate change intensifies hazards and increases uncertainty, strengthening women’s leadership in disaster risk reduction will remain essential to building safer, more resilient communities.
In coastal Bangladesh, Mira Sarker and her community are learning to adapt through climate-resilient livelihoods.
Related
content
content
