On May 2, 2019 the Canadian Red Cross and Humanitarian Response Network co-hosted an event in Ottawa, Canada. The Gender Equality in Humanitarian Assistance Event brought together practitioners from the Canadian humanitarian community and the Government of Canada in a spirit of collaboration and knowledge sharing in order to strengthen our work. This report highlights the experience and experience-based recommendations of more than 25 humanitarian organisations, as shared in the discussions framed by the 11 UN OCHA global coordination clusters.
The Honourable Kamal Khera, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for International Development, opened the event and launched the Humanitarian Assistance Policy: “A Feminist Approach: Gender Equality in Humanitarian Action”. We would like to thank Ms Khera for her participation. We also wish to thank Global Affairs Canada for their strong presence and engagement at the workshop, as well as for their generous financial support to the May 2nd Gender Equality in Humanitarian Assistance event.
At the end of the Gender Equality in Humanitarian Assistance event, the Canadian Red Cross and Humanitarian Response Network promised to produce an initial summary of this important dialogue among humanitarian practitioners (reproduced in the first two pages of this document), followed by a comprehensive report (the subsequent pages) that more fully represents the exchange of experiences and learning on May 2nd. On behalf of the Canadian Red Cross and the Humanitarian Response Network, we hope that this report will generate further learning; that it will provide an opportunity to strengthen our collective work through knowledge sharing, policy dialogue and other initiatives that will lead to increasingly better outcomes for the people whom we serve.
