The CHS Alliance takes the Pledge for Parity this International Women’s Day 2016

8 March 2016

The CHS Alliance would like to wish all humanitarian and development actors and those they aim to assist around the world a happy International Women’s Day.

The CHS Alliance would like to wish all humanitarian and development actors and those they aim to assist around the world a happy International Women’s Day!

In 2016, our Executive Director Judith F. Greenwood committed to the Geneva Gender Panel Parity Pledge to ensure gender parity at our events and panels by reaching out to female experts.

“Gender equality is essential for improvements in humanitarian accountability. It is a cornerstone of the Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS), and the CHS Alliance will work to promote equality at all levels of our work, and among our members, partners and other stakeholders,” she said.

The CHS Alliance has committed in 2016 to ensuring Protection from Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) is not an issue for women only. Over the year, we will mentor two male aid workers to become SEA investigations trainers, and we will promote engagement by men in all our work on PSEA through the year.

We are also ensuring our Core Humanitarian Standard Self-Assessment Tool includes an aggregated indicator on gender to allow those measuring their application of the CHS to assess their performance on gender. The CHS recognises that the participation of crisis-affected people is the cornerstone of an effective humanitarian response. It is thus vital to collect and use data disaggregated by sex. This will help to ensure the different needs of various groups such as women are met by giving them a say in the decisions that shape responses.

To celebrate International Women’s Day, we’d like to highlight the following insightful resources on women:

This report by the International Resuce Committee sheds light on the condition of women and girls inside Syria and those who have fled the conflict for safety in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq.

This IASC handbook offers real and practical guidance on identifying and addressing the differing needs and situations of women, girls, boys and men; in other words, being sensitive to gender issues in humanitarian crises.

The purpose of this UN Women research study is to systematically collect and analyse evidence on the effects of gender equality programming on humanitarian outcomes in Kenya, Nepal and the Philippines.