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Opinion: Rebuilding from the Frontlines: A Gender-Responsive Approach to Health in Times of Crisis
- Apr 5
- 4 min read
By Mynea Yi
IPF
Future Forum's junior research fellow Mynea Yi was published in Cambodianess on April 5th, 2026. Check out the original article HERE, and read it below!
When disaster hits—whether floods, disease outbreaks, or displacement—the damage doesn’t fall evenly. For women and girls in Cambodia, the risks extend far beyond immediate physical harm. Crises disrupt maternal and reproductive care, cut off access to essential health services, and heighten exposure to gender-based violence.
While Cambodia’s policies speak clearly about gender equity, that promise often weakens at the community level, where it matters most. Closing this gap means investing in the people on the frontlines—especially Village Health Support Groups (VHSGs)—and equipping them with the tools and training to deliver truly gender-responsive care when it is needed most.
Frontline health support groups are the backbone of community health systems. They are often volunteers who are picked from their own villages, serving as the primary link between rural families and formal health services. Their work is important in delivering maternal, newborn, and child health in the rural areas in Cambodia, and especially during crises.
However, right now their capacity in service delivery work performance is still limited. A recent report by the World Bank highlights the role of VHSGs in expanding access to quality health and nutrition services for women and children as nearly 4,500 VHSGs trained to support maternal and child health within local communities. However, despite this progress, there are remaining gaps because without institutionalized training, frontline workers are unprepared to handle gender-based emergencies effectively.
International Frameworks for Gender-Responsive Healthcare
Building effective and inclusive health services begins with a foundational understanding of gender-responsive care and the international principles underpinning it. Thus, international standards provide a clear framework for addressing these gaps. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), gender-responsive programs should focus on quality care that puts patients at the center to ensure good service standards, positive healthcare provider attitudes, and easy access to information in both public and private health settings.
At a minimum, gender-responsive healthcare training should equip health workers with:
— Clinical skills tailored to maternal, newborn, and reproductive care in crisis situations;
— Gender awareness and communication skills that ensure respectful and confidential engagement with women and girls;
— Clear identification and response mechanisms for gender-based violence that prioritize safety, dignity, and referral pathways for the survivor.
These international principles provide the foundation for the national health training systems, and help to create consistent standards, clear responsibilities, and better quality care in crisis. Shifting away from project-based training toward structured competency-based training equips frontline responders to deliver gender-responsive care more effectively in emergency situations.
Aligning our national health systems with these global standards will strengthen the health system, improve outcomes for women and girls, and ensure care is respectful, fair, and centered on the needs and safety of survivors.
Principles for Institutionalizing Gender-Responsive Frontline Training
In Cambodia, much of the existing capacity building for frontline responders in Cambodia is ad-hoc, project-based, and driven by external donors rather than institutionalized into national training systems. It insufficiently equips them to confront the complex challenges women encounter during crises, including reproductive emergencies, disrespect for dignity and consent, need for survivor-centered care, and the necessity for confidential reporting of gender-based violence.
According to WHO Cambodia, rural provinces remain scarce in reproductive healthcare and hygiene education.
Village Health Support Groups are foundational to community health outreach. Their original mandate was to bridge community needs with health facilities, encouraging preventive care, health promotion, and referrals. Organizations like RACHA support VHSG training in health education, breastfeeding, sanitation, infectious disease awareness, and family planning, demonstrating how community engagement can enhance health outcomes.
However, to be effective in crisis settings and gender-responsive roles, VHSGs need structured, competency-based training cycles. A practical model would involve bi-monthly training co-led by MoH and the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MoWA), with provincial health departments coordinating logistics and NGOs offering facilitation support.
These trainings would build on existing VHSG roles by adding components on:
— Crisis and emergency preparedness for maternal and reproductive health;
— Survivor-centered responses to gender-based violence to include confidential referral protocols following the footsteps of UNFPA’s Survivor-Centred Approach to Monitoring Gender-based Violence Response Programming.
Strengthening VHSG capacities in these areas ensures communities are supported both in everyday health needs and during periods of disruption, whether caused by natural disasters or public health emergencies. Thus, we should improve the current system by delivering a more comprehensive competency-based and preservice training for VHSGs.
We can already see progress being made in this area, as exemplified by the meeting between MoWA, the Australian Embassy, and other related stakeholders to discuss strengthening Cambodia’s response to gender-based violence.
Cambodia has existing models of multi-stakeholder collaboration that can inform the development of a gender-responsive healthcare curriculum.
For example, DanChurchAid (DCA) works with local partners to build community resilience, promote gender equality, and respond to emergencies with mechanisms that include marginalized groups and women’s empowerment initiatives. Such humanitarian partnerships illustrate the value of integrating gender focus into broader resilience frameworks.
Similarly, UN agencies like UNFPA have mobilized “dignity kits” for women and girls affected by floods and other natural disasters containing essential hygiene, clothing, and sexual and reproductive health information to address women’s specific needs in crises. These initiatives demonstrate how gender-attentive interventions can be systematically embedded into national training and practice rather than remaining stand-alone responses.
Way Forward
Beyond crisis preparedness, gender-responsive healthcare is equally important in everyday practice. When health workers understand gender dynamics, respect patient dignity, and communicate empathetically, women and girls are more likely to seek care early and regularly, advancing broader public health goals, reducing stigma, and promoting equity.
This approach aligns with Cambodia’s gender mainstreaming mechanisms, including the Technical Working Group on Gender (TWG-G) led by MoWA and partners, which integrates gender considerations across government sectors.
Embedding gender-responsive healthcare into frontline capacity building not only complements these governance frameworks but also recognizes Cambodia’s frontline workers and VHSGs as trusted community actors shaping better health outcomes.
By institutionalizing gender-responsive training and empowering VHSGs as capable first responders, Cambodia can bridge the gap between policy ambition and actual conditions turning crises into opportunities to strengthen healthcare systems and sustainable development.
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