Risk Prevention at Local Scale and Gender-Sensitive: Experience and Learning from Acapulco, Mexico

Abstract

This work proposes a risk prevention strategy at a local scale and gender sensitive, aiming to contribute to delineate ways to materialize inclusive processes of prevention and risk reduction. The strategy is based on a participatory ‘action research’ carried out between 2018 and 2019 with women from Colonia Palma Sola FOVISSSTE, on the outskirts of Acapulco de Juárez, Mexico. Methodologically, the work included three complementary lines of action: involvement and awareness, diagnosis and planning, and linkage and action. This work emphasizes the importance of generating strategies sustained by involvement processes that seek to link risk management and local development, and linkage processes that allow the creation of alliances with governmental and non-governmental actors. This work also highlights three key challenges around developing gender-sensitive local management processes: breaking gender stereotypes and roles, designing processes and activities tailored to the interests, needs and capacities of women, and promoting the empowerment of women, seeking in particular to improve their self-esteem and expand their capacities to relate and create multisectoral alliances.

Keywords

• gestión del riesgo
• desarrollo local
• género
• empoderamiento
• méxico