103270 Stories of Impact A series highlighting achievements in disaster risk management Encouraging Women’s Contribution to Resilient Cities REGION: MIDDLE EAST The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has AND NORTH AFRICA been affected by 388 disasters in the past 35 years. FOCUS: COMMUNITY AND The number of natural disaster in the region has SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT nearly tripled since 1980. With 62% of the population COUNTRY: EGYPT, LEBANON, DJIBOUTI living in cities, the region’s rapid urbanization increases the vulnerability of people and economic assets to disaster events. In response, the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) and the World Bank have organized a Women Entrepreneurship Resilient Cities RESULTS: (WE’Resilient Cities) competition in the MENA region. • A grant from GFDRR has helped mobilize This competition, which began in Djibouti, Beirut, and $200,000 from partnering investment funds and venture capitalists to help Cairo in early 2015, is designed to promote the creation women-led start-ups and provide of women-led risk management start-ups. It is the mentoring to winning start-ups for one result of a strong public-private partnership between year at the end of the competition. the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation • This program represents the MENA region’s (IFC), Johnson & Johnson, Instituto Empresa (IE) first start-up competition for women Business School, the Center for Mediterranean seeking to contribute to resilience in cities in the region. Integration (CMI), the MENA Early Stage Investment Facility (ESIF), and Smart Data Science. • More than 150 teams have entered the competition. An accompanying public awareness campaign is expected to reach over 300,000 people in the region through social media channels. Published October 2015 Construction in downtown Cairo CONTEXT: Over the past 30 years, climate-related disasters have affected 50 million people in the MENA region and cost approximately $11.5 billion. The high concentration of population and assets in urban areas makes the impact of these disasters even more devastating. Evidence shows that in societies where economic and social rights are equal for both men and women, disaster-related fatalities between both sexes do not differ significantly. Contrarily, when women’s rights and socio-economic status are inferior to men’s, fatalities among women are greater in adverse natural events. Despite progress toward gender parity in education and health, only 21% of women participate in the labor market and 40% are unemployed in MENA. Women face limited self-employment opportunities and more jobs are needed in the private sector to absorb the growing number of female job seekers. Women in MENA face unequal pay and occupational choices, as well as limited self- employment opportunities through entrepreneurship. APPROACH: With support from GFDRR and other private partners, has organized a start-up competition for women to tackle these issues and address urban disaster risk. Seed-funding of $70,000 to organize the competition has been provided by GFDRR, while the financial awards for the winning start-ups will be funded by private sector partners. Awards for winning projects will be up to $100,000. Significant challenges faced by MENA entrepreneurs relate to (i) marketing products and services, (ii) building a team, and (iii) obtaining funding. The “WE’Resilient Cities competition provides an WE’Resilient Cities Competition is working closely with MENA governments, invaluable opportunity for female leaders to banks, universities, and foundations to provide competition participants with transform city risk into sustainable, profitable, much-needed support in these areas. In addition to project funding, the and long-lasting business ventures.” competition will offer: – Andrea Zanon, Program Leader, • Crash-courses in marketing and business, made available by IE WE’Resilient Cities Competition Business School, one of the world’s leading business schools. • Guidance to help participants build teams and learn how to retain talent during the competition and beyond. • Connections to regional and international financiers, thereby bridging LESSONS LEARNED: the gap in communication between investors and entrepreneurs. Innovative programming with multiple partners is inherently The initial phase of the program accepted proposals from March 10 to April complex to build. As the MENA region’s first entrepreneurship 10, 2015 via www.weresilient.org. competition on city resilience, developing and managing partnerships for the Women Entrepreneurship Resilient Cities Competition has proved challenging. There are no NEXT STEPS: substantial precedents for the organizers and partners to In addition to awards of funding and mentorship, the winners, to draw on. Additionally, given ongoing political turmoil in the be announced in early 2015, will be connected to local, regional, and region, responding to natural disasters is a low priority for international financial institutions that focus on promoting women’s governments, private sector actors, and individuals alike. This entrepreneurship, such as Lebanon BLC Bank or the Goldman Sachs lessened interest around disaster risk management initiatives Foundation, to improve their scalability and access to capital. At the end has rendered the development of partnerships more difficult. of the first selection process, four short-listed candidates of each city will Adapting to diverse audiences is essential. To secure buy-in sit for Design Thinking training made available by IE Business School. from different stakeholders, including female participants, Building on the World Bank’s existing disaster risk management the competition team tailored its communication efforts programs and the ongoing first phase of the competition, 30 additional to reach a broad regional audience. Instead of focusing cities in the MENA region have expressed interest in participating in the on “disaster risk management,” a term with limited public second phase, and as many as 100 are expected to join later in 2015. resonance, the campaign highlighted the expected results of the program around making cities safer, more competitive and more resilient. In response to this approach, more than Contact 180 entrepreneurs and partners attended February 2015 Shaela Rahman information sessions in the three target cities. srahman@worldbank.org www.gfdrr.org *ALL MONETARY VALUES IN USD