CASE STUDY 21
Women-Led Climate Disaster Response and Advocacy
Nepal
Context
Nepal is highly vulnerable to various climate hazards, including floods, landslides, glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs), droughts, and erratic monsoons. These events displace communities, reduce access to healthcare, and heighten risks of gender-based violence. Women and girls from marginalized and indigenous communities—many living near rivers or in the hills—are disproportionately impacted. Displacement leads to breakdowns in health systems, while patriarchal crisis responses often overlook sexual and reproductive health needs.
Organization
The Women’s Rehabilitation Center (WOREC) is a feminist organization in Nepal focused on gender justice, ecological justice, and community-based support for survivors of violence. WOREC works across multiple domains, including disaster response, health service delivery, policy advocacy, and women’s leadership. Their programming explicitly integrates human rights, SRHR, and climate resilience through a feminist lens.
Approach
WOREC operates Sneha Kendras (Women-Friendly Spaces), which were initiated during the 2008 Koshi floods and scaled up during the 2015 earthquake. These safe spaces offer feminist care for women and girls, including psychosocial counseling and healing, GBV crisis response, legal aid, dignity kits that address SRHR needs, SRHR services, and nutritious meals. Eight such centers were active during the COVID-19 and post-disaster periods in Kathmandu, Morang, Dhanusha, Dang, Rukum, Jagarkot, Kailali, and other disaster-affected areas, and remain operational as needed. They serve as both emergency relief centers and spaces for leadership building and collective healing.
WOREC also conducts feminist scoping studies, such as one with ARROW in the Dang, Udayapur, Koshi, and Mahakali river basin, which documented how disaster displacement disrupts prenatal care and menstrual hygiene management. WOREC advocates for national policies in Nepal that include women in disaster response leadership and local climate adaptation planning. Their integrated feminist disaster response approach has influenced policy dialogues with local authorities, including the adoption of gender-sensitive budgeting and the inclusion of SRHR in disaster planning frameworks.
Results to Date
Sneha Kendras (Women-Friendly Safe Spaces) have been institutionalized across multiple crises as standard safe spaces for women. 3 Sneha Kendras remained operational and 5 can be operated immediately after the disaster in support of local government, offering psychosocial counseling, legal support, feminist SRHR care, and integrated women’s health camps.
More than 6,000 emergency relief packages and over 5,000 dignity kits were distributed during pandemics and natural disasters.
More than 80,000 women (including pregnant and lactating mothers) from affected populations were identified and supported across flood-affected districts.
“Women are the first responders in disasters—but they are not seen as humanitarian workers. That needs to change.”
SUNITA MAINALI
Executive Director, The Women’s Rehabilitation Center (WOREC)
PDF Innovative Approaches to Addressing Climate Change Impacts on Sexual & Reproductive Health: Case Studies from Around the World