Women have been disproportionately affected by natural hazards due to many reasons. Minimum representation of women in disaster decision-making has been identified as such reasons for their high vulnerabilities in disasters. Hence, women's empowerment in disaster decision-making has been proposed by researchers and many international frameworks as a strategy to address vulnerabilities. Because women's empowerment in disaster risk governance is expected to reduce their vulnerabilities and strengthen overall societal resilience to future hazards. However, limited evidence is available on how to achieve women's empowerment in disaster risk governance.

Hence, this chapter aims to explore the challenges that prevent their empowerment in disaster risk governance structure as input for policy makers of Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka was selected due to its increasing risks for disasters and the status of women's empowerment within the risk governance structure. Using a semi-structured interview guideline, which was developed based on the literature review, nine semi-structured interviews were conducted with the experts in the field of the study. Interview data were analysed qualitatively to identify the challenges that limit women's empowerment in disaster risk governance structure in Sri Lanka. The identified challenges are presented in this paper with the suggestions made by experts as inputs for the policymaking process. Accordingly, twenty challenges were identified within five broad themes as legal, institutional, individual, social & cultural and nature of the job. Accordingly, three suggestions were presented to overcome the identified challenges to enhance women's empowerment in disaster risk governance structure in Sri Lanka.

由于多种原因，妇女受到自然灾害的影响尤其严重。妇女在灾害决策中的最低代表人数被确定为妇女在灾害中易受伤害的原因。因此，研究人员和许多国际框架已提出在灾害决策中赋予妇女权力，以此作为解决脆弱性的战略。因为增强妇女在灾害风险治理中的权能可望减少其脆弱性并增强社会整体对未来灾害的抵御能力。但是，关于如何在灾害风险治理中增强妇女权能的证据有限。

因此，本章旨在探讨阻碍其在灾害风险治理结构中授权的挑战，这是斯里兰卡决策者的投入。之所以选择斯里兰卡，是因为其灾害风险不断增加，以及在风险治理结构中增强妇女权能的状况。使用基于文献综述制定的半结构化访谈指南，与研究领域的专家进行了九次半结构化访谈。对访谈数据进行了定性分析，以确定在斯里兰卡的灾害风险治理结构中限制妇女赋权的挑战。本文提出了已确定的挑战，并提出了专家的建议，作为决策过程的投入。因此，在法律，机构，个人，社会，文化和工作性质五个大主题中确定了二十项挑战。因此，提出了三项建议，以克服已确定的挑战，以增强斯里兰卡在灾害风险治理结构中赋予妇女权力的能力。