Humanitarian responses often miss opportunities to transform gender relations through the leadership and empowerment of women and girls in their role as decision makers, first responders and economic actors — forgetting the fact that these are key to effective crisis response and to building community’s resilience for future shocks.

It is therefore crucial to make sure that the response to the Beirut explosion as well as longer term recovery work takes into consideration to the needs of women and girls and ensures that women are included and benefit from in the response both as decision-makers, active participants in the design and implementation, as well as recipients.