Measuring Gender Dynamics in Resilience: Tools for Integrating Gender into Resilience-Focused Programs
Gender inequalities in decision-making, community participation and market access limit women’s ability to prepare for, respond to and recover from shocks.
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Mercy Corps defines resilience as “the capacity of communities in complex socio-ecological systems to learn, cope, adapt and transform in the face of shocks and stresses.” Within these communities, gender and socio-cultural norms often dictate who has access to resources and who can participate in household and community decision-making. Identifying and understanding these differences allows programs to respond effectively to differential vulnerabilities and capacities.
Mercy Corps’ BRIGE program (Building Resilience through Integration of Gender and Empowerment) was launched in 2015 to explore the intersection of gender and resilience, both in theory and in practice. The BRIGE program assessed approaches in three countries — Indonesia, Nepal and Niger — as a source for wider learning on how to integrate gender and social inclusion into resilience-focused programs.
Building upon a previous Mercy Corps study on gender and resilience in the Sahel region (Shean and Alnouri 2014), BRIGE identified three key pathways through which gender differences should be incorporated into resilience-focused programming:
Pathway 1: Women’s equitable participation in household decision-making
Pathway 2: Women’s meaningful participation in community groups
Pathway 3: Women’s access to market linkages
Gender inequalities in household decision-making, community participation and market access limit women’s ability to prepare for, respond to and recover from shocks. Furthermore, they limit women’s ability to access and benefit from program activities meant to strengthen resilience. Advancing women’s participation in household decision-making, community organizations and markets is critical to their building resilience for themselves, their families, and their communities.
Designing resilience programs that effectively strengthen women’s resilience capacities requires a detailed understanding of each pathway in the program setting. In recognition of the need for context-specific gender and resilience analysis, BRIGE worked with resilience programs in Indonesia, Nepal, and Niger1 to develop and to pilot measurement tools that serve multiple purposes for gender integration in Mercy Corps’ resilience-focused programs. These purposes include identifying gender-related barriers to resilience, measuring how resilience programs affect these pathways, and supporting staff learning.
The specific purpose of each tool is as follows:
- Household Decision-making Tool: To assess women’s agency in household decision-making, particularly in areas such as household finances or disaster response plans that directly relate to resilience to shocks. This survey is administered separately to a husband and wife in the same household.
- Community Participation Tool: To assess the level of participation of women and marginalized persons in resilience-building community groups, such as disaster risk management groups or village savings associations. This tool goes beyond disaggregating participant data by sex, and includes direct observation of community meetings.
- Market Linkages Tool: To assess how access and participation in specific markets differs between men, women and marginalized groups. This survey is administered to farmers of different social groups within a market system.
This report synthesizes lessons learned from the pilot studies where these tools were developed and applied. It provides guidance on how to contextualize future applications of the tools for different situations and purposes, as well as how to interpret and analyze findings.