How women's concerns are shaped in community-based disaster risk management in Bangladesh

This article elaborates on how concerns regarding gender in community-based disaster risk management are shaped through interaction between local agents of development and communities in Bangladesh. As women and men have different experiences in disaster, gender concerns should be fully addressed by the community and integrated in the action they take up to reduce disaster risks. The term ‘local agents of development’ refers to individuals engaged in implementation of development policy in their own community. Recent trends in community-based disaster risk management policy seek what is called a ‘whole community approach’ engaging various stakeholders such as traditional village elite, ‘local civil society’ and leaders of community-based organizations – mostly poor villagers supported by non-governmental organizations. Within the context of the…