Investing in the economic empowerment of women affected by conflict can help the international community to achieve three universal goals: 1. Sustainable progress for women’s rights. 2. Peace building and prevention of conflict. 3. Sustainable development and ending extreme poverty. Since 1993, Women for Women International
has served more than 479,000 marginalised
women affected by conflict. Through our yearlong programme marginalised women are
supported to: earn and save money; influence
decisions; improve their well-being; and connect
to networks for support. We see promising
results in our monitoring and evaluation efforts. Based on our evidence and complemented
by global studies, we highlight four key,
interlinked components that are necessary
for effectively supporting women’s economic
empowerment in conflict:
1. Work with men to address discriminatory
gender norms. All members of society
suffer from patriarchal attitudes and have a
role to play in promoting gender equality –
these are not just “women’s issues”.
2. Holistic and integrated programming.
Women’s needs and experiences in
conflict are complex and interlinked. Solely
economic interventions alone have not
proven to yield long-term benefits.
3. Build women’s economic knowledge
and skills. This is vital to supporting them
to build agency and influence decisions,
increase their income and increase their
resilience to economic shocks.
4. Informal and formal support networks.
In the absence of government and financial
services, networks are key to supporting
women to access financial support,
particularly for savings and income.
In conclusion, this paper makes five
recommendations for international
governments and donors to effectively deliver
on international commitments and support
marginalised women’s economic empowerment
in conflict-affected contexts:
1. Urgently increase funding for women’s
rights organisations.
2. Support economic empowerment
programmes that include men in their
programme design.
3. Target the most marginalised women.
4. Support holistic and integrated
programming.
5. Listen to the needs of marginalised
women and actively include them in the
design, implementation and review of
economic empowerment programmes.