The Gender and Disaster Network hosts this online resource, the Gender and Disaster Sourcebook, which is for gender mainstreaming in disaster risk reduction and post-disaster management. Its intended users include survivors, activists, women’s organisations, research centres and institutes, government entities, as well as aid and humanitarian agencies. Among the types of resources it contains are gender mainstreaming guidelines, in-house reports and documents, first-person accounts, research protocols, training materials, university syllabi, policy guides, checklists and field guides.

Until recently, those involved in climate change programmes and policy development assumed that men and women experience climate change in similar ways. But recognition is now growing that the effects will be disproportionately felt by the world’s poorest people, a group in which women are overrepresented, and existing patterns of gender disadvantage are likely to be magnified.

Despite its status and development within the United Nations international system, climate change policy-making has failed to adopt a gender-sensitive strategy. This failure not only generates concern in terms of respect for gender equity at the international level, it also leads to shortcomings in the efficiency and effectiveness of climate related measures and instruments. Without a gender-sensitive method of analysis, it is impossible to determine the full set of causes and potential effects of climate change.

How can we measure the impact on the status of women of the Beijing and Dakar Platforms for Action in African countries ten years after the Platforms were established? This manual aims to give clear guidance to gender impact assessment evaluators on how to carry out such monitoring. It provides direction on conducting impact evaluation exercises, including what data to collect; how to analyse and interpret the data; and how to report the findings. Five key areas form the focus of the guide: food security, health, trade and industry, planning, and finance.