''The issues will be how we make sure that women are fully engaged, and [the conference should] argue for women's empowerment and full equality, because why should they suffer?" she said.
"It's a huge issue" and has to "be integrated in the Sendai outcome"
Remi Sogunro, who represents the United Nations Population Fund in Liberia, said women bore the brunt not only of natural disasters like that unfolding in Vanuatu, but in human catastrophes such as the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
"Women are caregivers at home, and when their... families are sick, they take care of them,'' he said.