The acceleration of global climate change and the increasing risk posed by a range of natural, environmental and technological hazards is one of the Caribbean’s most critical development problems. Climate change associated risks are magnified in the region, given the number of Small Island Developing States (SIDS), fragile resource base and limited development options. As one of the five key practice areas, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) is working to assist countries to prevent crisis and encourage recovery, making the integration of risk reduction into the human development framework an essential component. The Hyogo Framework for Action, approved in January 2005 as an outcome of the World Conference on Disaster Reduction, guides UNDP’s collaboration in this area and is a decisive step forward in putting disaster risk reduction on the international agenda.
In the Caribbean region, UNDP supports such objectives through the Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery (BCPR) and the Caribbean Risk Management Initiative (CRMI). The CRMI provides a platform for coordinating and sharing knowledge, skills, reflection, and discussion in the field of climate change risk management, across language groups and cultures in the Caribbean.
The CRMI is committed to encouraging a gender perspective as an integral aspect of risk management and, as an outcome, has undertaken this compilation of studies on gender, disaster risk management and climate change. The objective of the research Enhancing Gender Visibility in Disaster Risk Management and Climate Change in the Caribbean is to make visible the differences between men and women in their ways of experiencing, managing and adapting to risk in the region, in order to advocate for more effective national and regional risk management policies and practices through the incorporation of gender.