Diverse and Local Humanitarians Essential for Disaster Preparedness and Response
Monday 2 October 2017 (Suva, Fiji) – “Humanitarian preparedness and response must include the voices and action of all
in society, to ensure that humanitarian assistance is just, inclusive, safe and dignified,” said Noelene Nabulivou,
political advisor of Diverse Voices for Action and Equality (DIVA for Equality).
A sharing circle facilitated by DIVA for Equality and UN Women provided an intimate and grounded space for perspectives
on gender equality and human rights from diverse and local humanitarians at the Pacific Humanitarian Partnership (PHP)
meeting today in Suva.
Experiences were shared by national civil society members from across the Pacific region including
FemLINKPacific/Transcend Oceania, Pacific Rainbows Advocacy Network (PRAN), Fiji Disabled Peoples Federation (FDPF),
Women United Together Marshall Islands (WUTMI) and DIVA for Equality.
“We are human rights defenders, but with limited resources – we are doing the work out of passion and we sacrifice time
with family, who are themselves being affected during a disaster,” said Viva Tatawaqa, management collective member of
DIVA for Equality.
“We are in the field supporting affected people from the most poor and marginalised communities,” added Ms Tatawaqa.
The Pacific Humanitarian Partnership (PHP) Meeting being held on 2-3 October in Fiji seeks to bring together the
humanitarian community – including government, UN agencies, civil society organisations, social movements and
international and national non-government organisations (INGOs and NGOs) - to share best practices and strengthen
localization of preparedness and response activities.
“Now, it’s a top to bottom approach – but at the community level, we are already ‘localised’ and we just need to enhance
the system in place without introducing a new system, ” said Bonita Qio, coordinator of PRAN - an organisation based in
Lautoka for women of diverse sexual orientation, gender identity and expression including transwomen and sex workers.
“We don’t want to only focus on learning from past experiences – we want to be better prepared, with a plan to ensure we
use our local knowledge to be resilient going forward,” added Ms Qio.
Following Tropical Cyclone (TC) Winston, Ms Qio conducted outreach for members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transsexual, transgender, gender non-conforming and intersex (LGBTQI) communities, assisted with Fiji Red Cross field
assessments and supported femLINKpacific’s Women’s Weather Watch, which is the main source of information on disasters
that can be accessed and understood by women in rural communities.
Lanieta Tuimabu, Office Manager for Fiji Disabled Peoples Federation (FDPF), speaking about TC Winston said “through the
clusters, we were able to push – we had a lack of manpower and our [disability] issues were not coming up so strong –
but clusters listened to us, that was a platform we could use to advocate in.”
Ms Tuimabu added “we worked through the formal structure with data and assessments – we came up with our own set of
questions, and from this info collected came the dignity packs.”
There is a need to pre-position key supplies for people with disabilities to avoid delays in distributing dignity packs
as “quality and safe [medical] products and mobility devices - needed to avoid complications and not cause issues - are
not available locally,” said Ms Tuimabu.
Isikeli Tumaiwakaya Vulavou of Rainbow Pride Foundation was also involved in the TC Winston response and recovery -
collecting stories from LGBTQI community members affected by the disaster.
“We want [humanitarian agencies] to think within the SOGIESC [sexual orientation, gender identity and expression and sex
characteristics] Framework during a disaster so that people with diverse sexual and gender identities are not left out”,
added Mx Vulavou.
Mx Vulavou noted that “there has been interest by humanitarian actors, but a lack of global guidelines on how to
engage.”
Naeemah Khan, Gender and Humanitarian Analyst with UN Women, said “these people on the mat are doing humanitarian work
at great expense to them personally – their organisations don’t have big budgets and they can be out in the field for
2-3 weeks at a time during disasters.”
“Localisation needs to consider how we can better support local humanitarian actors and civil society organisations with
core funding so they can continue to do this critical work and not only to survive, but thrive,” added Ms Khan.
In line with the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) commitments, the PHP meeting aims to have greater collaboration in
disaster preparedness and response between governments and international humanitarian partners and civil society
organisations.
UN Women is taking its WHS commitments on gender and localization seriously in ensuring funding reaches local actors
including feminist, women-led and LGBTQI-led civil society groups, strengthening shared skills for effective
implementation of funding and ensuring the needs of women and Pacific communities, in all their diversities, are met.
Additionally, UN Women is providing leadership to the regional Pacific Humanitarian Protection Cluster, bringing
together UN agencies, regional organizations, NGOs and INGOs to coordinate protection preparedness and response across
the Pacific. Leading the cluster is a first for UN Women globally and an opportunity to ensure that women - as well as
children, people with disabilities, LGBTQI communities and displaced people - are equal participants in planning and
responding to natural disasters.