Inter-Agency Standing Committee: Sub-Working Group on Gender and Humanitarian Action

The Gender Capacity Standby Roster (GenCap) Steering Committee held its annual planning and strategy meeting in October 2009. It decided to increase the number of deployments from 120 months in 2009 to 170 months in 2010 and to recruit more members to the GenCap roster. The IASC Gender Sub-Working Group (SWG) on Gender and Humanitarian Action, in collaboration with InterAction, developed a certificate-based online course on gender in humanitarian action. The target audience is humanitarian field workers, and prevention of gender-based violence in a key facet of the course. Hide

The IASC Gender Sub-Working Group (SWG) on Gender and Humanitarian Action, in collaboration with InterAction, developed an e-learning course for humanitarian workers to teach them how to develop programming that ensures that the needs and capacities of women, girls, boys and men are met in humanitarian situations. This course draws on important IASC handbooks, including:- Women, Girls, Boys and Men, Different Needs – Equal Opportunities- Guidelines for Gender-based Violence Interventions in Humanitarian Settings Hide

Inter-agency regional workshops were held in Bangkok, Nairobi, and Johannesburg to facilitate roll-out of the Gender Handbook. The Gender-Based Violence Guidelines were translated into Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, French, Spanish and Portuguese.In June 2008, the IASC Sub Working Group on Gender released a SOP template for prevention and response to sexual and gender-based violence in IDP settings, based on the UNHCR template. Hide

The IASC Task Force on Gender and Humanitarian Assistance issued a statement of commitment on actions to address gender-based violence, re-emphasizing members’ individual and collective responsibility to undertake concerted action aimed at preventing gender-based violence, ensuring appropriate care and follow-up for victims/survivors of sexual violence and working towards holding perpetrators of sexual violence accountable.In 2005, the IASC Task Force on Gender and Humanitarian Assistance published Guidelines for Gender-based Violence Interventions in Humanitarian Emergencies: Focusing on Prevention and Response to Sexual Violence. The Guidelines are a tool for actors in the field to establish a multi-sectoral coordinated approach to gender-based violence programming in emergency settings. OCHA’s role has been to provide support for the development and use of the IASC Guidelines. Hide