Three representatives from the Vanuatu’s Gender and Protection Cluster will participate in a regional learning tour to share how Vanuatu has increased women and girls’ participation in emergency preparedness and response efforts.
The team will visit Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.
The learning tour will also provide the representatives the opportunity to share their experiences about women and girl’s participation in disaster preparedness and response efforts.
Vanuatu’s Gender and Protection Cluster is a group made up of government and civil society organisations that focus efforts on protecting the livelihoods and safety of the most vulnerable in the face of disasters.
The cluster is led by the Department of Women’s Affairs, with CARE Vanuatu and Save the Children in Vanuatu as co leads.
The cluster has clear objectives: to increase knowledge about gender and protection in emergencies; improve support for women, children and vulnerable people when a disaster strikes across all humanitarian responders and clusters; and to coordinate actions to support the most vulnerable when protection risks are identified.
During emergencies and disaster responses like the Ambae evacuation, the cluster is activated to lead action to address gender and protection related issues, focusing on the needs of vulnerable groups including women, people with disability and children.
Since 2017, CARE Vanuatu and Save the Children, in partnership with the Department of Women’s Affairs and UN Women have delivered the “Increasing women and girls voice in the humanitarian sector: The localisation of the Vanuatu Gender & Protection Cluster” project funded by UN Women.
The project works with national, provincial and local civil society organisations including Community Disaster and Climate Change Committee members and School Disaster Committee members, especially with women members of committees to strengthen women’s ability to participate in and lead humanitarian response work.
The project also works with Ni-Vanuatu civil society organisations focussed on gender and protection to strengthen their capacity to deliver emergency responses as part of the gender and protection cluster.
“Vanuatu’s Gender and Protection Cluster have had a lot of achievements and challenges in the past and it’s good to visit other Melanesian countries and learn from their approaches and efforts to localise gender and protection responses” said Save the Children Country director Georgia Tracey.
Photo file. Caption: Women and children in the aftermath of Cyclone Pam in Vanuatu in 2015