Who holds the microphone: Crisis affected women’s voices on gender transformative changes in humanitarian settings

This report contributes to the broader set of efforts by women’s rights stakeholders to identify and share ways that the transformative potential of the Grand Bargain might also be realized for women and girls. This report’s primary audience are the Grand Bargain signatories, in particular donor Governments, funding agencies and the diverse group of humanitarian actors who seek to operationalize the ambitious “localization” and “participation revolution” workstreams. In addition to exploring how gender-transformative change manifests itself in four humanitarian settings in Bangladesh, Colombia, Jordan and Uganda, this report suggests practical entry points to apply gender-transformative humanitarian action that contributes to the humanitarian-development-peace nexus, as well as funding opportunities for promising interventions that advance gender equality.

The research presented in this report is based on a mixed-methods approach that zoomed in on affected populations and includes participatory videos and video clips alongside key informant interviews (KIIs) and focus group discussions (FGDs). In order to bring women’s experiences to the forefront of this report, the authors provide Quick Response (QR) codes throughout the report that are linked to the audiovisual material. With a QR code reader application operating through the camera function of a smartphone or tablet, these codes can be scanned and will lead the reader directly to the videos. Alternatively, embedded hyperlinks can be used for the same purpose.