Gender Hub (Last updated on: 06 Oct 2021)

Since the height of the crisis in August 2017, almost a million Rohingya people have sought refuge in Cox’s Bazar, creating the fastest growing refugee crisis in the world. From the onset, the nature of this crisis has been a particularly gendered one. Women and girls, who make up more than half of the refugee population, face higher risks of abuse, exploitation and violence. The Senior Executive Group is committed to ensuring gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls in the humanitarian response. To that end, and to address the particular challenges of this gendered crisis, UN Women, with funds from Global Affairs Canada, has launched the Gender Hub in March 2019. The Gender Hub sits with the Inter-Sector Coordination Group, a strategic place that allows it to better collaborate and influence all sectors.

What is the Gender Hub?

The purpose of the Gender Hub is to strengthen the accountability of humanitarian actors for gender equality and empowerment of women and girls from Rohingya refugees and host communities. To do so, the Gender Hub will support all actors, including local agencies and government, to plan, program and implement the humanitarian response in a gender and diversity sensitive and responsive way.

The Gender Hub ensures robust integration and collaboration with protection, GBV and PSEA sectors and experts to build on the existing evidence, interventions, analysis and guidance from other related sectors. All work and materials will be in line with the IASC Policy on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in Humanitarian Action and the Accountability Framework.

What does the Gender Hub do?

The Gender Hub provides three types of services to humanitarian actors:

• Technical Assistance - increase access to gender-related technical guidance and support at a strategic level. This includes providing sound technical advice and hands-on support to different sectors, government and humanitarian agencies on better integrating gender equality and women’s empowerment in their strategies and plans.
• Capacity Development - consolidate and standardize training modules and facilitating a series of context specific gender training courses and different learning initiatives.
• Knowledge Management – collect, synthesize and share knowledge and good practices on gender-responsive humanitarian interventions. The Gender Hub will strengthen the evidence- base for designing gender responsive interventions, and adapt gender related guidance notes or tools to meet any knowledge gaps.