Netherlands: Persisting Gender Inequalities in Humanitarian Assistance
Since its findings of October 2005 post earthquake disaster in Pakistan, Gender Concerns International has been working for the inclusion of women`s needs assessment in early post-disaster assessments by women organisations and gender-experts. In the lead up to the review debate on Humanitarian Help held on 11th May, an urgent call for action was sent to the Dutch government, once again addressing the persisting gender inequalities in the distribution of resources during emergency situations and the post-disaster management efforts.
We are pleased that theForeign Trade and Development Cooperation Committee emphasized the need to prioritize humanitarian policies that meet the relief and protection needs of ‘the vulnerable group’ (meaning (older) women, girls, (including) LGBTQI+ people and people with disabilities). Hereby, they questioned whether local organizations representing these marginalized groups should be directly funded. It is evident from the Ministry of Foreign Affair’s own IOB evaluations of humanitarian help, that the ministry is aware of the shortcomings concerning its humanitarian assistance and diplomacy efforts that demands more inclusion and localization. However, the policy memorandum, shows clearly that the government's efforts currently remain limited to dialogue and diplomacy towards its long-term multi-lateral partner organizations only.
We reiterate the concerns of multiple Commission members voiced during the debate about the inefficiency of the current funding system; since research and the evaluations show that these multilateral organizations are not always strong on inclusion and localization. For example, the pooled funds of OCHA, the UN humanitarian aid agency, lack a gender lens and only 9 percent of the funding went to women's organisations. In addition, these multilateral organizations can only make limited adjustments in their decision-making on how to spend their budgets.
Gender Concerns notes that the current efforts bring no justice to the desire of the government and implementing partners to strengthen the inclusiveness of the humanitarian system. International and local women organizations from both the Global North and Global South need to be fully respected and recognized for the potential of their development and humanitarian work and resources must be provided to them in the efforts to have a meaningful post-disaster gender-equal impact.
The number of people receiving emergency aid worldwide has never been higher: 339 million people in 2023, about half of whom are women and girls. With these huge numbers, it is particularly worrying that groups of people in a vulnerable position do not receive the help they need. On the one hand, this is due to national budget cuts for international poverty reduction and emergency aid. The reason for these cuts is that in 2023 more than 1 billion euros will be needed for the reception of asylum seekers in the Netherlands. Half of this is paid from the budget for development cooperation. On the other hand, this is because there is a lack of ‘localization’ efforts. Local (women-led) organizations are known to be better situated to understand and perform the needs-assessment for marginalized/vulnerable groups.