Women empowerment in disaster recovery

When it comes to the design of a disaster's recovery, assessments too often focus on visible and quantifiable impacts while neglecting forms of violence and exclusion that most disproportionately affected women (GFDRR, 2018). The COVID-19 pandemic is no exception. Governments response mainly focused on its immediate effects and failed to consider the trade-offs and unintended consequences of them. For example, pre-existing inequalities in the gendered division of labour have deepened and domestic violence has been further aggravated. Therefore, these circumstances might be used as an opportunity to tailor disaster/crisis recoveries towards the sustained positive development of gender equality and women empowerment. The research aims to develop a design-led system, putting women as protagonist of the community's social reconstruction strategy, that can be integrated into existing services. This may be achieved by applying design research methods such as co-design where participants are actively engaged in the process. The proposal suggests that in order to plan recovery that integrates women, we should anticipate the problems and develop outcomes that are implemented post-disaster.