💡 Host: UNESCO
📅 Date: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2025
⏱️ Time: 3:00 pm Paris-time (CEST)
🖥️ Format: Online, on ZOOM.
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REGISTRATION: https://unesco-org.zoom.us/meeting/register/Q6IojSy6RwK4zJEox0CpWA
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Speaker list:
Jennifer Guralnick, UNDRR, Regional Coordinator LAC for EW4All
Cynthia Rodríguez, LAC Women’s Network for Disaster Risk (Red LAC de Mujeres para la Reducción del Riesgo de Desastres)
Laura Saxer, we4DRR (Women exchange for Disaster Risk Reduction, Europe)
Sarah Peers, INWES (The International Network of Women Engineers & Scientists)
Moderator: UNESCO DRR, Evanna Corona van Vliet
Description:
The need for effective and inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction efforts is becoming increasingly evident as climate-related hazards such as droughts, floods, storms and heatwaves become more frequent and more severe. Non-climate related hazards such as earthquakes also remain a source of immense losses of lives, livelihoods and infrastructure.
Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) provides the foundation for effective disaster risk reduction, including through machine learning, Artificial Intelligence, data observation, modeling and analysis (including, for example, satellite data for flood forecasting), and resilient construction (UNESCO, 2024). Mounting research on Nature-based Solutions (NbS) also represent promising avenues for reducing disaster risk and building resilience.
However, women are an untapped resource in building much-needed global resilience to disasters. Globally, only 33% of the world’s researchers are women (UNESCO, 2022). A glaring data gap remains on the presence and participation of women in Science for DRR. Research that addresses the intersection between women in DRR focuses almost exclusively on the vulnerabilities of women in disaster contexts, and, to a lesser extent, on their participation in DRR policy- and decision-making. While related, more attention is needed for women’s contribution to DRR through STEM and related fields.