International cooperation on humanitarian assistance in the field of natural disasters, from relief to development A/RES/67/231 non-traditional partners, identification and dissemination of lessons learned, development of common tools and mechanisms for recovery needs assessment, strategy development and programming, and incorporation of risk reduction into all recovery processes, and welcomes the ongoing efforts to this end; 26. Encourages Member States and the United Nations system to support national initiatives that address the possible differentiated impacts of natural disasters on the affected population, including through the collection and analysis of data disaggregated, inter alia, by sex, age and disability, using, inter alia, the existing information provided by States, and through the development of tools, methods and procedures that will result in more timely and useful initial needs assessments; 27. Calls upon United Nations humanitarian organizations, in consultation with Member States, as appropriate, to strengthen the evidence base for humanitarian assistance by further developing common mechanisms to improve the quality, transparency and reliability of, and make further progress towards, common humanitarian needs assessments, to assess their performance in assistance and to ensure the most effective use of humanitarian resources by these organizations; 28. Encourages Member States to take steps to develop or to improve data collection and analysis and to facilitate the exchange of information with humanitarian organizations of the United Nations, in order to support preparedness efforts and to improve the effectiveness of a needs-based humanitarian response, and encourages the United Nations system, as appropriate, and other relevant actors to continue to assist developing countries in their efforts to build local and national capacities for data collection and analysis; 29. Stresses the importance of the full and equal participation of women in decision-making and of gender mainstreaming in developing and implementing disaster risk reduction, preparedness, response and recovery strategies, and in this regard requests the Secretary-General to continue ensuring that gender mainstreaming is better taken into account in all aspects of humanitarian responses and activities; 30. Encourages Member States and relevant regional and international organizations to identify and improve the dissemination of best practices for improving disaster preparedness, response and early recovery and to scale up successful local initiatives, as appropriate; 31. Requests the United Nations humanitarian and development organizations to improve their coordination of disaster recovery efforts, from relief to development, inter alia, by strengthening institutional, coordination and strategic planning efforts in disaster preparedness, resilience-building and recovery, in support of national authorities, and by ensuring that development actors participate in strategic planning at an early stage; 32. Calls upon the United Nations system and other humanitarian actors to improve the dissemination of tools and services to support enhanced disaster risk reduction, in particular preparedness, and early recovery; 33. Calls upon relevant United Nations humanitarian and development organizations, in consultation with Member States, to strengthen tools and mechanisms to ensure that early recovery needs and support are integrated into the planning and implementation of disaster preparedness, humanitarian response and development cooperation activities, as appropriate; 7/8