UN deputy relief chief calls for boosting women’s role in humanitarian responses

Remarks by Joyce Msuya, Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, at the Economic and Social Council’s Humanitarian Affairs Segment 

High-level Panel: “Transformative humanitarian action – women and girls at the center of prevention, response and protection”

As delivered

It is an honour for me to participate in this panel today on a very important issue for the success of humanitarian operations and for all people affected by crises.

We are all well aware of the disproportionate impacts of crises on women and girls.

We know that women and girls are disproportionately affected by forced displacement: In Sudan, for instance, women and girls constitute more than 75 per cent of displaced people, disproportionately facing all struggles that come with displacement, including catastrophic food insecurity.

We also know that they bear the brunt of conflict: In Gaza, for instance, women and children account for the majority of the of fatalities. Thousands of women are facing severe hardship – many are forced to give birth without anesthetics or adequate access to sexual or reproductive health care. We’ve heard reports of women taking pills to avoid having their menstrual cycle amid appalling sanitary conditions and an absence of privacy.

And we know that they are the overwhelming targets of gender-based violence: We’ve seen this in Ukraine, Haiti and in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo where, last year, 113,000 people – the majority of them women and girls – sought support for gender-based violence. Frequent underreporting means that the number of survivors is undoubtedly much higher. 

Our focus on the needs of women and girls in humanitarian responses must be in proportion to the challenges they face.

If we are serious about comprehensive and accountable humanitarian support, we must prioritize the role of women.  

Yet the evidence shows that we have a long, long way to go on both these requirements.

Allow me, Mr. Chair, to propose three priority areas for action.

First – protection. If women do not receive support for the protection issues they face, they cannot play their full part in humanitarian responses.

This need is most stark in relation to gender-based violence. 

Despite ever-growing needs, programmes that seek to address gender-based violence are among the most underfunded humanitarian sectors.

At OCHA [the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs], we are urgently pushing for this issue to be rectified.

We are advocating for gender-based violence prevention and response programmes to be better prioritized and funded. The Emergency Relief Coordinator made this point clearly and strongly at the Inter-Agency Standing Committee’s (IASC) “High-Level Roundtable on the Call to Action on Protection from gender-based violence in emergencies” hosted by Germany and the ERC last year.

We are also exploring ways to increase funding for local organizations for their gender-based violence (GBV) responses. One of the options we are looking at is to replicate the $25 million Central Emergency Response Fund GBV block grant in 2021, that made much-needed additional funding available for frontline GBV services.

Simply put, we all need to do more to turn plans, policies and pledges into increased and sustained funding for concrete action on gender-based violence. 

The second priority area for action is to activate women’s leadership, participation and decision-making in humanitarian responses.

We all know how important this is.

Women are not just victims, or a vulnerable group. They can be agents of change and critical to the success of any humanitarian response.

This was starkly demonstrated in Afghanistan, when the ban on women workers imperiled the entire humanitarian response. I also saw the challenges posed by Mahram requirements in Yemen when I visited in 2022.

Women are resilient. I have witnessed this in the communities I have visited. In Niger, I witnessed how women welcomed internally displaced people into their homes, looked after them, fed them when they didn’t have much. This gives me hope.

We need to do much more to protect and boost the involvement of women in humanitarian responses.

Support to local women’s organizations is key.

With their unique knowledge of local contexts, local stakeholders, and local communities and their needs, women-led organizations are key to ensuring that humanitarian relief gets where it needs to go.

And women’s role in agriculture and health means that support to women’s organizations is also critical for sustainable solutions to issues such as food insecurity and the impacts of climate change.

This is why it is a critical aspect of OCHA’s Strategic Framework for 2023-2026.

Some progress has been made. And more collective action is needed, which the IASC is committed to in its new IASC Gender Policy.

Women in affected communities are increasingly included in the design, decision-making and delivery of humanitarian assistance.

Last year, the OCHA-managed country-based pooled fund in Ukraine provided $19 million to local women-led humanitarian organizations, while the pooled fund in Nigeria allocated more than one third of its funds to women-led organizations.

Women’s Advisory Groups continue to inform our work in Afghanistan and on the Syria Cross-Border operations. And we are actively promoting this model in Sudan.

However, clearly there is a long way to go, not least on sustainable funding.

Last year, just 8 per cent of country-based pooled funds were channeled to women-led organizations.

I look forward to hearing from Ms. [Negina] Yari [of the Women’s Advisory Group to the Humanitarian Country Team in Afghanistan] and Ms. [Hala] Al-Karib [the Regional Director for Strategic Initiatives for Women in the Horn of Africa Network] on how we can boost our partnerships and support to frontline women’s organizations.

Finally, the third priority action is for the UN and other international organizations, to lead from the front.

In March, the UN Secretary-General launched the UN Gender Equality Acceleration Plan. The call to the UN system was crystal clear: we need urgently to accelerate meaningful traction on gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, particularly the most marginalized – adolescent girls, older women, and those with disabilities. Action is urgent on resourcing, accountability, and leadership.

As leaders on humanitarian action, we all need to play our part in pushing progress forward.

This is not just a moral prerogative, it is a vital requirement for making humanitarian responses more efficient, more effective and more accountable to the people we serve.  

The Gender Equality Acceleration Plan, together with the new IASC Gender Policy, is an opportunity for us to renew our resolve to put women and girls at the center of prevention, response and protection – and at the heart of everything we do.

Thank you.