Anita Karki, a gender expert consultant at ICIMOD, talks in eKantipur about her experience in training women about gender, disaster preparedness and HIV/AIDS in Nepal in 2006. "These women faced floods every monsoon, and many disaster risk reduction initiatives were taking place in their settlements," she writes. "Women had contributed to the construction of toilets and hand water pumps as part of the disaster risk reduction initiative in their communities," she continues.
"Working with women victims of floods was enough to convince me why we need to look into gender aspects in disaster risk reduction initiatives (...) On the occasion of International Women’s Day, I would like to stress that women are not only more vulnerable to disasters but also play central roles in disaster management."