U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
USAID Program and Operations Assessment Report No. 28
Center for Development Information and Evaluation
July 2001
The Role of International Assistance
Aftermath: Women and
Women’s Organizations
In Postconflict Societies
PN–ACG–621
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U.S. AGENCY FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
The views and interpretations expressed in this report are those of the author
and not necessarily those of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
USAID Program and Operations
Assessment Report No. 28
Aftermath: Women and
Women’s Organizations
In Postconflict Societies
The Role of International Assistance
by
Krishna Kumar
Center for Development Information and Evaluation
U.S. Agency for International Development
Washington
July 2001
Contents
Acknowledgments ..................................... v
Preface.......................................................... vii
Summary ..................................................... ix
1. Introduction ........................................ 1
2. Intrastate Conflicts ............................... 5
Case-Study Countries
In Conflict ............................................ 5
Relevance to Women
And to Gender Relations .................. 7
3. Impacts of Intrastate
Conflicts on Women ........................... 11
Social and
Psychological Impacts ....................... 11
Economic Impacts ................................. 18
Political Impacts .................................... 24
4. The Emergence and Contributions
Of Women’s Organizations ............... 29
Growth of Women’s Organizations
During Postconflict Transition ........ 29
Nature of
Women’s Organizations ................... 32
Activities of
Women’s Organizations ................... 33
Obstacles and Limitations
To Women’s Organizations .............. 36
Women’s Organizations
And Empowerment ........................... 38
Sustainability of
Women’s Organizations ................... 41
5. International Assistance
To Women’s Organizations ............... 45
Nature of
International Assistance .................... 45
Contributions of
International Assistance .................... 46
International Assistance
And the Autonomy of
Women’s Organizations ................... 47
Important Issues in
International Assistance .................... 49
6. Lessons and
Recommendations
For USAID and the
International Community ................... 51
Lessons and Recommendations
For USAID to Support Women
And Gender Relations ...................... 51
Lessons and Recommendations
For Strengthening
Women’s Organizations ................... 54
Strategic Framework
For International Assistance ............. 56
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
HAVE TAXED THE GENEROSITY of several
colleagues, friends, and outside experts
in directing the multicountry assessment
on intrastate conflicts and women. While
it is not possible to mention all of them, I
must acknowledge a few whose support
has been critical.
The very idea of conducting the as￾sessment came from then-administrator
Brian Atwood, who had been a source of
inspiration and support for my earlier
studies on the rehabilitation and recon￾struction of postconflict societies. Larry
Garber, then acting assistant administra￾tor for USAID’s Policy and Program Coor￾dination Bureau, encouraged me to pur￾sue the subject. Gerald Britan, director of
the Center for Development Information
and Evaluation, and Susan Merrill, deputy
director, provided me necessary resources
to conduct the assessment. Jean DuRette
and Joseph Lieberson, the chief and
deputy chief of the Program and Policy
Division, have been most gracious in their
unwavering help and guidance.
I developed the assessment design
with the assistance of a team consisting of
Robin Silver, senior fellow at the Democ￾racy Center; Thomas Buck, research assis￾tant, and Stephanie McNulty, senior re￾search analyst, at CDIE. The assessment
design was discussed in a workshop held
in June 1998. I very much benefited from
the thoughtful comments of many col￾leagues and outside experts, including
Sally Yudelman, Judy Benjamin, Sidney
Schuler, Martha Walsh, Comfort Lamptey,
Hannah Baldwin, Anne Hudock, Cate
Johnson, Catie Lott, Susan Merrill, and Joe
Lieberson.
Development Alternatives Inc. pro￾vided technical support for the assess￾ment. Peter Davis and Meloney Lindberg
managed study teams with remarkable
efficiency. Judy Benjamin and Alice
Morton served as Women in Development
specialists at different times.
Sean Loughna, Kate Frieson, and
Thomas Buck wrote country background
papers for Guatemala, Cambodia, and
Georgia, respectively. The country case
studies were authored by the following ex￾perts on the basis of their fieldwork:
Martha Walsh (Bosnia and Herzegovina);
I
vi Women and Women’s Organizations in Postconflict Societies
Hannah Baldwin, Judy Benjamin, and
myself (Cambodia); Lynn Stephen, Kelly
Ready, and Serena Cosgrove (El Salvador);
Virginia Garrard–Burnett (Guatemala);
Alice Morton, Susan Allen Nan, Thomas
Buck, and Feride Zurikashvili (Georgia);
and Catharine Newbury and Hannah
Baldwin (Rwanda). These case studies
provided much of the material on which
the present assessment is based.
Throughout the assessment, Thomas
Buck conducted exhaustive searches for
project and program documents, books
and articles, and unpublished reports.
Without his help, I could not have com￾pleted this report. Jean DuRette, Heather
McHugh, Kim Maynard, Jennifer
Hoffman, and Hannah Baldwin provided
extensive comments on the first draft. I also
profited from the comments and sugges￾tions of Joseph Lieberson, Katharine
Blakeslee, Martha Walsh, Annette
Sheckler, Michi Ebata, Patricia Weiss
Fagen, Ajit Joshi, and Rosemary Cassidy. I
am grateful to all of them.
I could not think of a better editor
than Michael Hopps.
—KRISHNA KUMAR
Center for Development
Information and Evaluation
Preface
HIS EXAMINATION OF THE IMPACT of
conflict on women and the role of
women’s organizations in the aftermath of
conflict proved to be more challenging than
I expected. Not only is this a relatively new
topic of study, it is also one on which prac￾titioners hold strong views. Data collec￾tion for the country field studies has been
particularly difficult. The teams faced se￾rious problems in gathering or accessing
data, especially comparable quantitative
data. Often government departments and
struggling women’s organizations did not
keep precise records. Or when kept,
records were difficult to reproduce or not
readily available. Multiple language use
T
also complicated data collection. Thus the
field teams relied largely on qualitative
information gleaned from in-depth inter￾views or group meetings, reports on on￾going and past programs, and observation.
Although I have drawn from the indi￾vidual country field studies, I have exten￾sively used published and unpublished
studies and reports by individual schol￾ars or by national or international organi￾zations. In addition, I have consulted many
country experts and practitioners, who
reviewed and commented on the draft.
However, I alone am responsible for the
views, conclusions, and lessons presented
here.
—KRISHNA KUMAR
Center for Development
Information and Evaluation
Summary
INCE THE END of the Cold War, intra￾state conflicts have increased world￾wide. Poverty, the struggle for scarce
resources, declining standards of living,
ethnic rivalries and divisions, political
repression by authoritarian governments,
and rapid social and economic modern￾ization—all these factors contribute to
intrastate conflicts.
All intrastate conflicts share a set of
common characteristics that have major
implications for women and gender rela￾tions. First, the belligerent parties delib￾erately inflict violence on civilian popu￾lations. Second, the intrastate conflicts
displace substantial numbers of people,
mostly women and children. Third,
women’s participation in war contributes
to the redefinition of their identities and
traditional roles. Fourth, there is usually
a conscious attempt to destroy the sup￾porting civilian infrastructure, leading to
increased poverty and starvation. Finally,
these conflicts leave among the belliger￾ent groups within the countries a legacy
of bitterness, hatred, and anger that is dif￾ficult to heal.
S
Both men and women suffer from
such conflicts. This study examines spe￾cifically the effects on women in six case￾study countries: Cambodia, Bosnia, El Sal￾vador, Georgia, Guatemala, and Rwanda.
It looks as well at the rise of indigenous
women’s organizations—their role, their
impact, their future.
Teams from USAID’s Center for Devel￾opment Information and Evaluation vis￾ited those countries during 1999. They
found the effects of war on women to fall
into three broad categories:
Social and psychological. Women often
were traumatized by the conflict. After the
hostilities, many feared for their physical
safety. During the early phases of post￾conflict transition, unemployed militia
continued to pose a serious threat to the
lives and property of women and children.
Fear of violence and sexual abuse (rape
had actually been used as a tool of war, to
subjugate, humiliate, terrorize) often kept
women from moving about freely. Abject
conditions in many postconflict societies
contributed to the growth of prostitution.
x Women and Women’s Organizations in Postconflict Societies
Economic. A major problem was lack
of property rights. Women were denied
ownership of land their dead husbands or
parents had owned. Rural women who
owned no land or other assets worked as
laborers or sharecroppers, at minimal
wages. Urban women carved out livings
mostly by selling foods and household
items. During conflict, women could work
in many occupations. As ex-combatants
returned to civilian life, though, female
workers were the first to lose their jobs.
Political. In the absence of men, all six
countries witnessed an expansion of
women’s public roles during the conflict.
Women volunteered in churches, schools,
hospitals, and private charities. They
often took charge of political institutions,
enhancing their political skills—and rais￾ing their expectations.
The conflicts created a ripe environ￾ment for the emergence or growth of
women’s organizations. For one thing, the
wars undermined the traditional social
order; women found it easier to take part
in public affairs. Moreover, governmental
reforms after the wars created political
space to launch women’s organizations.
Another factor was disillusionment. Dur￾ing or in the immediate aftermath of the
wars, women’s expectations of increased
political participation had risen. Those
expectations were never fully realized.
Finally, the readiness of the international
community to provide assistance to such
organizations contributed to their growth.
In the case-study countries, women’s
organizations have been active in virtually
all sectors: social, educational, economic,
political. They have established health
clinics, provided reproductive health care,
organized mass vaccination programs.
They have carried out programs to gener￾ate income and employment for women,
emphasizing microcredit and vocational
training. They have grappled with domes￾tic violence, prostitution, and the plight
of returning refugees and internally dis￾placed women. And they have promoted
democracy and human rights, supported
social reconciliation, and worked to
increase women’s participation in politi￾cal affairs.
International assistance has been
important to the development of women’s
organizations—and will be far into the
foreseeable future. Beyond financial sup￾port, international bodies have helped
indigenous women acquire managerial,
accounting, and technical skills. Interna￾tional assistance has also helped legiti￾mize women’s organizations, for example
by sheltering them from government
interference.
Attending the emergence of women’s
organizations is an array of obstacles. They
are social and cultural, imposed from
without, and organizational, imposed
from within. Chief among the former is
women’s low social status. At the family,
community, and national levels, women
confront a lack of support for their public
Summary xi
activities. Another outside encumbrance
is the short-term nature of international
assistance, which prevents long-term plan￾ning. Chief among internal obstacles is the
reluctance of women leaders to delegate
authority and to train junior staff for fu￾ture leadership. There is, moreover, a lack
of communication and sharing among org￾anizations.
The six individual CDIE country
evaluations yielded a number of recom￾mendations aimed at making assistance to
women’s organizations more effective.
Among them:
1. Build on women’s economic and politi￾cal gains. Because the postconflict era pro￾vides an opening to build on the progress
made by women during conflict, it makes
sense for USAID to continue to capitalize
on this opportunity.
2. Pay greater attention to civilian secu￾rity. USAID can assume a leadership role
in publicizing the problem of civilian
security and the need for concerted action
to protect women. The Agency can also
encourage other organizations to carry out
programs that can enhance physical secu￾rity for women.
3. Make concerted efforts with the rest of
the international community to prevent sexual
abuse of women. Measures might include
protecting witnesses, training interna￾tional peacekeepers in gender issues, and
promoting more women to international
judicial posts.
4. Promote microcredit. USAID should
support microcredit programs but not
ignore their limitations. They are not cures
for all economic problems facing women
in postconflict societies.
5. Support property rights for women.
USAID should continue supporting prop￾erty-rights reforms affecting women. This
should include not only constitutional and
legislative reforms but also their effective
implementation.
6. Consider multiyear funding. The
assurance of assistance for periods longer
than 6–9 months will help build institu￾tional capacity and boost staff morale.
7. Promote sustainability of women’s
organizations. USAID could provide techni￾cal assistance, when necessary, to improve
management; consider funding a portion
of core costs, in addition to program costs,
for a limited period; and help organi￾zations become self-reliant by such means
as improving skills in advocacy, fund￾raising, networking, and coalition
building.
8. Promote greater women’s participation
in elections. USAID should consider steps
to encourage political parties to field
women candidates and assist women can￾didates on a nonpartisan basis.
A
1 Introduction
S PART OF ITS ongoing studies on the
rehabilitation and reconstruction of
societies ravaged by civil wars, USAID’s
Center for Development Information and
Evaluation (CDIE) undertook an assess￾ment of gender issues in six postconflict
societies: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cam￾bodia, El Salvador, Georgia, Guatemala,
and Rwanda. The assessment centered on
the following three sets of questions:
■ What has been the impact of intrastate
conflicts on women? How did these
conflicts affect women’s economic,
social, and political roles and respon￾sibilities? What are the major problems
and challenges facing women in these
societies?
■ What types of women’s organizations
have emerged during the postconflict
era to address the challenges women
face and to promote gender equality?
What activities do these organizations
undertake? How successful have the
organizations been in empowering
women? What factors affect their per￾formance and impact?
■ What has been the nature and focus of
assistance provided by USAID and
other donor agencies to women’s
organizations? What are some of the
major problem areas in international
assistance?
The purpose of the assessment was
to generate a body of empirical knowledge
that could inform the policy and programs
of USAID and other international donor
agencies. The intention of the project was
to help the Agency and its partners
improve the performance and impact of
their postconflict interventions.
Three premises informed the design
and scope of the assessment. First, an
analysis of gender issues is needed to com￾prehend the effects of intrastate conflicts
on women. Such an analysis should exam￾ine women’s status, roles, and responsi￾bilities not as isolated phenomena but as
integral to the web of social, economic,
cultural, and political relations in which
men and women participate. Second,
women are not passive victims in intra￾state conflicts but active participants from
2 Women and Women’s Organizations in Postconflict Societies
inception to resolution. Because of gender
stratification, women often play different
roles during different stages of the con￾flict. They engage in a variety of survival
strategies to cope with problems and struc￾ture their lives differently during and
after conflict. Third, a comparative analy￾sis of gender issues in several war-ravaged
societies will further advance our knowl￾edge and understanding of the subject,
thereby enabling the international com￾munity to implement more effective inter￾ventions.
CDIE followed a simple methodology
to conduct this assessment. The work
started with a review of academic litera￾ture, project and program documents of
the international donor agencies, and
articles from newspapers and professional
journals. This review culminated in the
development of an assessment proposal
outlining the critical issues to be investi￾gated, the methodology to be followed,
and a schedule. CDIE then organized a
workshop for scholars, policymakers, and
practitioners, who discussed and evalu￾ated the proposal. The proposal was then
revised in light of comments generated at
the workshop.
Three criteria were used in selecting
the countries for field studies. First, to
avoid duplication of effort, the study team
should use the findings of existing empiri￾cally grounded studies, rather than launch
fresh investigations. Second, the assess￾ment should span the globe, including
Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America.
Third, the security conditions in the cho￾sen countries should permit unfettered
movement by the team. After extensive
consultation with the regional bureaus of
USAID and outside experts, CDIE decided
on eight countries: Afghanistan, Bosnia
and Herzegovina, Cambodia, El Salvador,
Georgia, Guatemala, Rwanda, and Sierra
Leone. Unfortunately, political develop￾ments in Afghanistan and Sierra Leone
prevented any fieldwork there, and CDIE
settled on the remaining six countries.*
Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI)
provided technical support for the assess￾ment, sending teams to all six countries to
collect information. However, the teams
faced serious problems in gathering the
necessary data. Often government depart￾ments and struggling women’s organiza￾tions did not keep precise records. When
kept, records were difficult to reproduce
or were not readily available to the teams.
Moreover, inadequate communication and
transportation systems prevented teams
from visiting remote areas where many
grass-roots women’s organizations oper￾ated. Language was frequently a barrier.
Hence, the teams relied largely on quali￾tative information gleaned from pro￾longed interviews or group meetings,
reports on ongoing and past programs,
and their own observations. CDIE teams
prepared case studies for all six countries.
*The authors of the country reports are Martha Walsh
(Bosnia and Herzegovina); Krishna Kumar, Hannah
Baldwin, and Judy Benjamin (Cambodia); Lynn Stephen,
Serena Cosgrove, and Kelley Ready (El Salvador); Alice
Morton, Susan Allen Nan, Thomas Buck, and Feride
Zurikashvili (Georgia); Virginia Garrard–Burnett (Gua￾temala); and Catharine Newbury and Hannah Baldwin
(Rwanda). Their reports are cited in the bibliography.
Introduction 3
This synthesis draws from the field inves￾tigations carried out in Bosnia and Herze￾govina, Cambodia, El Salvador, Georgia,
Guatemala, and Rwanda. Finally, the syn￾thesis also uses studies by individual
scholars or by national or international
organizations.
Chapter 2 describes the nature of in￾trastate conflicts and the ways they affect
women and gender relations. It also pro￾vides a bird’s-eye view of intrastate con￾flicts in the six case-study countries.
Chapter 3 recounts the impact of these
conflicts on women and gender relations.
It classifies findings under the three broad
categories of social and psychological ef￾fects, economic effects, and political effects
and briefly discusses the nature of inter￾national assistance programs in these
areas.
Chapter 4 examines women’s org￾anizations, their growth and activities, and
their impact on women’s empowerment
in case-study countries.
Chapter 5 discusses the nature and
impact of international assistance on
women’s organizations and describes a
few problem areas.
Chapter 6 presents conclusions and
recommendations. It also identifies a stra￾tegic framework for international pro￾grams and interventions in postconflict
societies.
Intrastate Conflicts
INCE THE END of the Cold War, intra￾state conflicts have increased world￾wide. Poverty, the struggle for scarce
resources, declining standards of living,
ethnic rivalries and divisions, political
repression by authoritarian governments,
and rapid social and economic modern￾ization—all these factors contribute to
intrastate conflicts. Although these con￾flicts vary in nature, most share character￾istics that have a profound effect on
women and on gender relations. This
chapter describes the nature of the con￾flicts that engulfed the case-study coun￾tries and identifies common characteris￾tics to consider when analyzing the effects
of intrastate conflicts on women and on
gender relations.
Case-Study
Countries in Conflict
The small southeastern European na￾tion of Bosnia and Herzegovina has four
million people and includes three princi￾pal ethnic groups: Muslims (40 percent),
Serbs (38 percent), and Croats (22 percent).
Formerly a republic within Yugoslavia,
S
2
Bosnia held an independence referendum
in March 1992 that was approved by two
thirds of the electorate. Serb nationalists
became apprehensive about indepen￾dence and laid siege to Sarajevo in April.
Initially, Muslim and Croat factions fought
together against the Serbs, but the coali￾tion later broke down, leading to a com￾plex war characterized by “ethnic cleans￾ing” and systematic rape of women.
Communities were “purified” by forced
evacuation and execution of minority
groups. The Muslim–Croat conflict was
resolved in 1994 through international
mediation. In December 1995, a brokered
peace agreement, known as the Dayton
Peace Accords, was formalized, establish￾ing Bosnia and Herzegovina as one state
with two entities.
The Southeast Asian country of Cam￾bodia now has 12 million people. The
Cambodian people suffered years of vio￾lent conflict throughout the 1970s and
1980s, including clandestine military op￾erations by North Vietnamese forces and
the Viet Cong, carpet bombing by the
United States, genocide under the Maoist
Khmer Rouge, invasion by Vietnam, and
6 Women and Women’s Organizations in Postconflict Countries
recurring guerrilla attacks by the defeated
Khmer Rouge and their allies. The Khmer
Rouge came into power in 1975 and tried
to convert the country into a Marxist uto￾pia. The regime evacuated all cities, cut
off communications with the outside
world, abolished money, closed schools
and universities, dismantled factories, and
banned private property. The Khmer
Rouge killed teachers, doctors, engineers,
and other educated Cambodians. The re￾gime undermined not only religion but
also the family institution. Between one
million and three million Cambodians
died in this era as a result of war, geno￾cide, and massive starvation. In 1979, Viet￾nam installed a new government in Phnom
Penh that both China and the Western pow￾ers found unacceptable. Guerrilla warfare
continued until an international peace
agreement was signed in 1991, resulting
in national elections and the establishment
of an elected coalition government in 1993.
El Salvador, a small Central American
country of 6.3 million citizens, survived a
civil war that raged from 1979 through
1991. The leftist Farabundo Martí National
Liberation Front (FMLN) rebelled against
a military-dominated government that
denied civil liberties to the people and
perpetuated an exploitive economic sys￾tem. During the conflict one million Sal￾vadorans fled the country, half of them mi￾grating to the United States. It is estimated
that nearly 1 percent of the population was
murdered or disappeared in this pro￾longed civil war, which ended when
neighboring countries brokered a peace
agreement.
Georgia, a former western Asian re￾public of the Soviet Union, with a popula￾tion of 5.5 million people, faced three con￾flicts in its recent history. Separatist
movements in South Ossetia and Abkhazia
defeated the Georgian army in 1991 and
1992, leading to their de facto indepen￾dence. These wars coincided with a civil
war between the supporters of then-presi￾dent Zviad Gamsakhurdia and opposition
forces led by Eduard Shevardnadze. As a
result of these conflicts, 1,000 people died
and 400,000 people were displaced. Some
200,000 people continue to be housed in
temporary quarters today.
Guatemala, in Central America, has
12.7 million people, more than half of them
tracing their ancestry to the indigenous
Maya. Economic and political power in the
country, however, has been vested in a
small elite of European origin and ladinos,
people of mixed Indian–European origin.
In 1954 the democratically elected leftist
government was overthrown by an anti￾communist movement supported by the
United States. This resulted in a prolonged
conflict between the succeeding govern￾ments and leftist guerrillas. The worst
phase occurred during 1979–85, when the
military initiated on the Maya people a
reign of terror, commonly referred to as la
violencia. It is estimated that more than
200,000 people died or disappeared dur￾ing the conflict and more than a million
were uprooted. After long negotiations,
the warring factions, civil and religious
leaders, and indigenous Maya leaders
signed a peace agreement in 1996, bring￾ing some normalcy to the country.
Intrastate Conflicts 7
Rwanda, a small central African coun￾try of 7.2 million people, endured among
the worst episodes of ethnic cleansing in
modern times. When the nation became
independent under ethnic Hutu rule in
1961, tens of thousands of the Tutsi minor￾ity fled to neighboring countries. In 1990
the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front
(RPF), based in Uganda, staged a military
offensive and occupied large portions of
northern Rwanda. The Hutu-dominated
government retaliated by inciting ethnic
tensions to consolidate its power. When
the plane carrying the Rwandan president
crashed on 6 April 1994, Hutu extremists
blamed the Tutsi for the crash and started
systematically killing them. Between
500,000 and 800,000 people were butch￾ered. The genocide stopped only after the
RPF defeated the government late in 1994.
In the aftermath of RPF’s victory, two mil￾lion Hutu fled to neighboring countries,
but by 1996 most had returned.
Relevance to Women
And to Gender Relations
All intrastate conflicts, including
those in the case-study countries, share
five broad characteristics relevant to
women and gender relations.
First, belligerent parties deliberately
inflict violence on civilian populations. In
fact, about 95 percent of the casualties in
intrastate conflicts are civilians, a trend that
alters a country’s demographic composi￾tion and social relations (OECD 1999). In
traditional wars between nations, warring
parties are obliged to follow international
norms to minimize direct harm to civilian
populations. Although these norms are
never fully enforced or practiced, they
exist nonetheless and may circumscribe
combatants’ behavior. This is not the case
in intrastate conflicts. In all countries stud￾ied in this assessment, at least one party
of the conflict—and, in most cases, both
parties—directed violence against inno￾cent civilians. In Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Cambodia, and Rwanda, state-supported
groups carried out ethnic cleansing with
impunity.
Second, intrastate conflicts displace
substantial numbers of people. The
wholesale destruction, physical insecurity,
disruption in livelihoods, and shortages
of food lead people to flee from their
homes and seek refuge in other parts of
the country or in neighboring countries.
To escape the genocide in Rwanda, two
million citizens fled across the borders to
adjacent countries. In Cambodia the
Khmer Rouge, under leader Pol Pot,
forced all city dwellers to move to remote
rural areas for political and ideological
reasons. Massive displacement of people
also took place in Bosnia and Herze￾govina, El Salvador, Georgia, and Guate￾mala. Women and children generally con￾stitute a majority of refugees and
internally displaced populations. The dis￾placement of people to refugee camps or
settlements, frequently in inhospitable
environments, profoundly affects gender
relations. Often the traditional roles of men
8 Women and Women’s Organizations in Postconflict Countries
and women are redefined, and the insti￾tution of the family comes under severe
stress, resulting in divorce and desertion.
Third, women’s own participation in
such wars also contributes to the redefini￾tion of their identities and traditional roles.
In El Salvador, 25 percent of the forces of
the FMLN were women. In Bosnia and
Herzegovina and in Rwanda, women par￾ticipated in ethnic cleansing. In many case￾study countries women performed impor￾tant roles in military operations, particu￾larly in medical care, transportation, com￾munications, and intelligence. In Georgia
and Guatemala, women’s participation
was more limited. Women’s motives for
joining war efforts were often the same as
men’s, but some felt compelled to support
the conflict because of their husbands’
positions or political pressure. Culture,
ethnicity, class, and age affected the nature
and extent of women’s involvement in war,
but like men, women were both the per￾petrators and victims of violence.
Fourth, there is usually a conscious
attempt to destroy the supporting civilian
infrastructure during intrastate conflicts.
Warring factions lay waste to buildings,
factories, and roads and even destroy
crops and agricultural facilities to create
economic and political instability. Such
activities inevitably increase poverty and
starvation, clearly affecting women and
children as much as, or more than, men.
In Cambodia and Rwanda the conflicts cre￾ated food insecurity and significant mal￾nutrition. Only the timely help of the
international community prevented even
greater death and destruction.
Finally, such conflicts leave a legacy
of anger, bitterness, and hatred among the
belligerent groups that is difficult to heal.
An important difference between intra￾state and interstate conflicts is that once
an interstate war is over, citizens in the
warring countries live separately, and
their interaction is usually limited. In
intrastate conflicts, unless the country is
partitioned, the formerly warring popu￾lations continue to face each other daily.
In Cambodia and Rwanda, perpetrators of
atrocities often continued to live with their
victims in the same villages. Conditions
were only marginally better in Bosnia and
Herzegovina. In many countries, former
combatants of opposing groups settled in
the same communities, keeping alive bit￾ter memories.
These characteristics of intrastate con￾flicts profoundly affect the social, eco￾nomic, and political status, roles, and
“Twarababaye [‘we have suffered’]. The
men made war, and the women suffer.”
“We felt as if we had lost all—as if we
had been stripped of our skin. People
lacked food, clothing, housing.”
“The social fabric was ripped apart—
indeed the person herself had been
torn apart.”
—Voices of Rwandan women
Intrastate Conflicts 9
responsibilities of women and alter their
relations with men during and after con￾flict. Not all these effects are necessarily
harmful and undesirable. As discussed in
chapter 3, intrastate conflict also creates
opportunities for change because the very
fabric of social life is torn by violence
against civilians and massive displace￾ment. Although it imposes severe hard￾ships and deprivation, conflict also pro￾vides space to develop gender equality
and can pave the way for women’s em￾powerment in the social, economic, and
political lives of their countries.
Impacts of Intrastate
Conflicts on Women
HE PREVIOUS CHAPTER identified the
characteristics of intrastate conflicts
and the ways they affect women and gen￾der relations in postconflict societies. This
chapter describes those effects under three
broad categories: 1) social and psychologi￾cal impacts, 2) economic impacts, and
3) political impacts. Of course, the nature,
intensity, and breadth of the effects of
conflict on women’s lives and relations be￾tween men and women vary with each
country’s social, economic, and political
milieu. Much depends on the nature,
location, and duration of the conflict and
on class and caste differences within the
populations. This chapter also mentions
the assistance programs funded by the
international community to address the
challenges faced by women in these
countries.
T
3
Social and
Psychological Impacts
Physical Insecurity
In all case-study countries, women
suffered from physical insecurity through￾out the civil wars. But the plight of women
in the war zones was the worst. They lived
in terror. The fear of violence and sexual
abuse often prevented women from mov￾ing freely. Most women in rural areas,
while working on their farms or collect￾ing firewood for cooking, were always
concerned for their safety. Those belong￾ing to ethnic minorities or whose family
members were suspected of sympathiz￾ing with one of the parties to the conflict
were in constant danger.
Conditions improved only margin￾ally when hostilities ceased. Early in the
postconflict transition, the presence of
demobilized soldiers and unemployed
militia posed a serious threat to the life
and property of innocent people, particu￾larly in rural areas. The behavior of mili￾tary and paramilitary organizations, long
“What security are you talking about?
The conditions [law and order] have
gone bad after the peace accord. I do
not feel safe in my own home.”
—A Mozambican woman
12 Women and Women’s Organizations in Postconflict Societies
accustomed to abusing power and violat￾ing human rights, did not always improve
when fighting ceased. Security sector
reforms, if introduced at all, produced
results only slowly.
In fact, law and order often deterio￾rated. The social disorganization and ero￾sion of the authority of traditional institu￾tions of social control, coupled with abject
poverty, usually contributed to an increase
in crime and delinquency. Many societies
had to cope with a large reservoir of un￾employed young men who had become
accustomed to using violence and brutal￾ity during the war. These men formed
gangs, particularly in urban areas. They
posed a constant threat to the security of
women and children.
Consequently, in many communities,
women continued to feel trapped in their
homes. In El Salvador and Guatemala,
although human rights violations de￾creased with the end of civil war, violent
crime increased, posing risks for women
who worked late in the evening. Rural
women were at risk from civil action
patrols, death squads, and, in fewer
instances, armed guerrillas. In Cambodia
many families chose not to send their girls
to school because they feared for their
safety. In Rwanda high levels of interper￾sonal violence (although not necessarily
of a criminal nature) continued.
The continuing animosity and distrust
among former belligerent ethnic groups
compounded the problem of physical
security in many countries. In Rwanda,
Hutu women who had fled their homes
encountered social ostracism and physi￾cal violence when they tried to return.
Hutu women whose spouses were impris￾oned for alleged participation in the geno￾cide felt socially stigmatized. In mixed
ethnic communities in Bosnia and Herze￾govina, minority women did not feel safe.
Conflicts shattered local friendship net￾works in the community that had previ￾ously provided women emotional and
social security.
The international donor community
has not paid adequate attention to physi￾cal security issues. Development and re￾lief agencies lack technical expertise in this
area. Some agencies, particularly USAID,
are constrained by legislative mandates
that restrict involvement in police and mili￾tary affairs. Nevertheless, international do￾nors have expended considerable re￾sources on the demobilization of
ex-combatants and their reintegration into
civilian society. Some donors, including
USAID, promoted police reforms in Bosnia
and Herzegovina, El Salvador, and Gua￾temala. Although these efforts reduced
government-perpetrated human rights
violations, they failed to make a dent in
the growing problem of lawlessness and
violence.
Psychosocial Trauma
The brutalities of war—separation
from loved ones, forced migration, sexual
abuse, starvation, and extreme violence
and cruelty—leave deep scars on both
women’s and men’s psyches. The psycho-
Impacts of Intrastate Conflicts on Women 13
logical and social effects of intrastate con￾flict had not received much attention from
the international community until events
in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia,
and Rwanda stimulated greater interest in
this area.
Anecdotal data suggest that signifi￾cantly high numbers of women were trau￾matized by conflict in all case-study coun￾tries.*
 Women in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Maya women in Guatemala, and Rwandan
women experienced high levels of stress
and anxiety in their daily lives. These
women displayed symptoms typical of
trauma, including listlessness, chronic fa￾tigue, anguish, recurrent recollections of
traumatic incidents, and depression. The
symptoms are commonly associated with
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), an
age-old disabling psychological condition
given new prominence—and a clinical
name—through its high incidence among
American combat veterans of the Vietnam
War.
Although not denying the presence of
symptoms associated with PTSD among
men and women in postconflict societies,
many researchers question the application
of the concept to the conditions of war-torn
societies. They point out that PTSD as￾sumes that traumatic events have ended
and victims have returned to a normal liv￾ing environment. In postconflict societies,
however, many conditions that contributed
to trauma—such as physical and psycho￾logical insecurity, separation from loved
ones, and threats of violence—persist for
some time. These researchers also argue
that the PTSD construct ignores the cultural
and social context of perceptions and
behaviors. Belief in karma, afterlife, and
ancestral and malevolent forces can affect
the way individuals experience and over￾come traumatic events in different societ￾ies. Critics also argue that Western notions
of trauma and therapy are alien to other
societies. Western hubris has sometimes
led to international assistance for trauma
victims before a thorough examination of
the local cultural context. In Rwanda, for
example, where impassivity is a highly
prized characteristic, the use of Western￾style therapy was deemed inappropriate
by many observers.
Despite severe emotional wounds,
women in the case-study countries have
demonstrated remarkable resilience and
courage in surviving. Their suffering
often remained unvoiced, though, and
sometimes was expressed through abu￾sive relationships with spouses or chil￾dren. Most of these women continued per￾forming their normal tasks, and their
clinging to routine work may have helped
them cope with trauma. In Georgia inter￾nally displaced women appeared to ad￾just better than their male counterparts.
Although men became passive and
moody, women took outside work to feed
their families. Some observers attributed
*Women are often particularly reluctant to take part in
surveys or research, or to seek therapy—especially re￾lating to incidents of sexual abuse or rape. This is due to
the social stigma attached, lack of exposure to the issues,
and a general fear of becoming the object of unwanted
attention. Therefore, it is difficult to collect data, and
many researchers suspect that the incidence of trauma is
dramatically higher than what is quantifiable.
14 Women and Women’s Organizations in Postconflict Societies
the women’s behavior to their nurturing
nature. Others suggested that their com￾paratively low status made women more
willing to work below their skill level.
The international community tested
a variety of programs to deal with psycho￾logical trauma and associated problems,
particularly in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Cambodia, and Rwanda. These programs
included training caregivers, teachers,
health workers, and others to identify the
signs and symptoms of trauma, establish￾ing mental health programs in hospitals,
and developing counseling programs at
women’s health care centers. Other pro￾grams—usually those associated with chil￾dren—used sports or arts as methods of
psychological healing. In a few cases, non￾governmental organizations (NGOs) pro￾moted traditional ways of dealing with
trauma. For example, USAID supported
projects in Angola and Mozambique,
where indigenous healers performed
ritual purification ceremonies to help trau￾matized children. In both countries, the
therapy seemed effective, at least in the
short term (Green and Honwana 1999).
International programs addressing
trauma generally suffered from three limi￾tations. First, they were based primarily
on Western notions of trauma and treat￾ment, which were inappropriate if they
failed to consider the local cultural con￾text. Unfortunately, little data exists on
best practices of more adaptive psycho￾social assistance. Second, interventions
were often brief, providing only short￾term training and support to local entities.
Because trauma counseling is a relatively
long-term need, positive outcomes were
often lost. Third, most of the programs con￾centrated on women and children, exclud￾ing men. Unless men—especially young
men exposed to the brutalities of war—
are treated, women and children are
bound to remain victims of aggression.
Sexual Abuse and Exploitation
Closely related to psychological
trauma is the problem of sexual abuse and
exploitation of women during and after
conflicts. Soldiers in belligerent groups
violated women as a tactic of warfare.
Security forces in El Salvador and Guate￾mala often abused young women sus￾pected of rebel sympathies. In Bosnia and
Herzegovina and Rwanda, rape was an es￾sential tactic of ethnic cleansing. Women
were raped—often in the presence of their
spouses, parents, or other family mem￾bers—to humiliate and terrorize members
of particular ethnic groups. In Rwanda,
women were forced to have sex with mem￾bers of the military as “payment” for vic￾tory or were raped by men of the enemy
group in revenge. In practically all war￾torn societies, young women living in
combat zones were victims*
 of sexual
*Use of the term “victim” is not wholly accepted in inter￾national circles because it connotes helplessness. An al￾ternative is the term “survivor,” which is commonly
used in discussions about rape and domestic abuse in
the United States. However, this implies that rape is sur￾vived, which is not always the case, and suggests more
participation in the act than does the term “victim.” For
this reason, this report uses “victim.”
Impacts of Intrastate Conflicts on Women 15
abuse by rebel forces and by the soldiers
assumed to be guarding them.*
Little research exists on the extent of
abuse and the number of female victims
in the case-study countries. Victims hide
the crimes and suffer silently because of
the associated shame and humiliation.
Even so, conservative estimates of rape
victims ran in the thousands in Bosnia and
Herzegovina, El Salvador, Guatemala, and
Rwanda. In Rwanda, researchers estimate
that more than 5,000 women were impreg￾nated through rape; most are now raising
children fathered by those who killed their
spouses or family members. †
 Little is
known about these mothers and children,
but their social and psychological agony
is beyond imagination. Guatemala’s Com￾mission for Historical Clarification re￾corded the testimony of thousands of
abused women but hesitated to delve
deeply into issues of rape.
Intrastate conflicts and the resulting
poverty, family disintegration, and erosion
of community contributed to the growth
of prostitution in many postconflict soci￾eties, particularly Bosnia and Herze￾govina, Cambodia, Georgia, and Rwanda.
In Cambodia economic desperation led
some families to sell their daughters, and
in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Rwanda
some housewives engaged in prostitution.
Trafficking in women grew as part of the
postconflict increase in crime, the drug
business, and other denigrating activities.
Women in many postconflict societies
were abducted or lured into prostitution
with false promises and became slaves to
their male bosses. Conflict undermined
family institutions, so families could not
control their male or female members who
were involved in sex rings. The large-scale
migration associated with intrastate con￾flicts further eroded community ties, con￾tributing to deviant behavior and the
spread of prostitution.
War often created a demand for pros￾titution by separating families and station￾ing young male soldiers far from their
homes. In the postconflict era, the presence
of international peacekeeping forces in￾creased demand for sexual workers in
many countries. In Cambodia, institution￾alized prostitution began when a large
group of male expatriates, particularly
members of UN peacekeeping forces,
arrived to enforce the cease-fire agree￾ments and organize elections. Local entre￾preneurs set up lucrative brothels. Even￾tually the local elite—particularly military
and police officials, senior government ser￾vants, and affluent business owners—
began frequenting them. As of 1998 more
than 14,000 women worked as prostitutes
in brothels in Cambodia (UNDP 1998).
Intrastate conflicts also led to increased
prostitution in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
*Rebel militia in Liberia, Mozambique, and Sierra Leone
abducted young women and kept them as sex slaves.
When conflict ended, such women were abandoned.
Most had difficulty afterward adjusting. Often their fami￾lies and communities spurned them. Without resources
or work experience, they became beggars or prostitutes.
†This is cited by El-Bushra and Mukaruguga (1995). Abor￾tion was not an option for these women. Many have
since remarried. Often, other family members have ac￾cepted the children.
16 Women and Women’s Organizations in Postconflict Societies
El Salvador, and Rwanda, but not always
on the same scale.
The international community has
called attention to the sexual abuse of
women in a variety of ways. USAID and
other international donor agencies funded
projects to assist and rehabilitate abused
women. International NGOs worked with
local groups to counsel prostitutes, hop￾ing to limit the spread of HIV/AIDS. Inter￾national organizations also strengthened
legal and institutional mechanisms to pun￾ish sexual criminals and marketers of sex.
However, many social, cultural, and even
political barriers stood in the way of na￾tional and international efforts to curb
prostitution and trafficking of women. Vic￾tims were not forthcoming, often fearing
retribution from their bosses, and the male
bosses were reluctant to forfeit their live￾lihoods. Communities did not want to
draw attention to the problem, and gov￾ernment officials wanted to continue to
reap financial benefits in the form of kick￾backs. Finally, the international donor com￾munity lacked the technical and organi￾zational experience needed to deal with
this delicate issue.
Family Roles and Responsibilities
Intrastate conflicts profoundly
affected families, often increasing women’s
household burdens. The numbers of
households headed by single women
increased as men were disabled, impris￾oned, dead, or away fighting. Such house￾holds transformed the traditional division
of labor between men and women, with
women assuming male roles, including
disciplining male children, building and
repairing houses, dealing with commu￾nity leaders and government officials, and
fulfilling religious and social obligations.
Most important, women had to feed and
support their families alone.
Growth in the number of orphans
and separated children*
 also added to
women’s burdens. Many children lost
their parents during conflict. Others were
separated from their families during con￾flict and forced migration. Still others were
abandoned by parents because of severe
economic or psychological stress. The
burden of raising these children fell on
extended families or neighbors, with
women shouldering most of the responsi￾bilities. In Rwanda the exodus of hundreds
“In Cambodia, more than 25 years of
civil war and the consequent social
disruption have torn apart bonds of
families and communities alike, so
that the demands of survival often take
precedence. Family disruption, abusive
behavior, and death of one or both
parents, stepparents with weak
attachments, and the larger issue of
social and community disruption are
all risk factors that may propel women
and children into the commercial sex
industry.”
—Physicians for Human Rights
(1997)
*The term “separated children” refers to those who have
lost their parents during the fighting or while migrating.
Children are not considered orphans unless their par￾ents are confirmed dead.
Impacts of Intrastate Conflicts on Women 17
of thousands of people left thousands of
separated children. Women throughout
the country immediately volunteered to
care for them.
Women typically assumed greater
economic responsibilities during and af￾ter conflict. These additional responsibili￾ties did not necessarily result in a corre￾sponding decline in their household
chores. In all case-study countries women
continued to cook, wash clothes, and care
for children despite spending more hours
on farm work and other jobs. This “double
shift” for women often led to tension
within families. For example, in Georgia
many internally displaced women who
started working in the informal sector to
feed their families complained that their
unemployed spouses refused to seek
work and wasted their meager resources
on cigarettes and vodka.
Intrastate ethnic conflicts often cre￾ated problems for families of mixed
ethnicity. In Rwanda and Bosnia and
Herzegovina, interethnic couples were tar￾geted during ethnic cleansing. Those who
survived came under intense pressure to
separate or assume false identities. In
Rwanda, Hutu women married to Tutsi
men were accepted neither by their own
parents nor by their in-laws. Mixed mar￾riages were a priority category for asylum
seekers from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Under these conditions, some men and
women voluntarily left their spouses—
and some women were forced to leave.*
Finally, conflict also contributed to a
decline in the status of women in some
countries. Several researchers observed
this phenomenon in Cambodia, where
bride prices declined despite general
inflation.† Cambodian men could divorce
their spouses and find new ones more eas￾ily than before the conflict. Polygamy is
reported to have increased in Cambodia
since the war ended, forcing single women
in desperate situations to enter into mari￾tal arrangements, both formal and infor￾mal, with married men.
Domestic Violence
Anecdotal evidence indicates that, for
several reasons, domestic violence by men
against women and by women against
children increased in many war-torn coun￾tries.‡
 The conflicts generated a subculture
“We are dead tired like a dead snake.”
“We work mad like a mad cow.”
—Two Cambodian women
*
In Somalia, where people married into different clans,
couples whose clans later became enemies had to di￾vorce. Women returned to their parents, children re￾mained with their fathers.
†The CDIE case study of Cambodia emphasizes this point
and supports the findings of Ledgerwood (1996) and
Frieson (1998).
‡
In Guatemala there is no evidence of a direct associa￾tion between an increase in domestic violence and the
end of the conflict. However, there are data to show a
correlation between increased alcohol abuse and in￾creased domestic violence. There also is a correlation
between men who served in the war and increased do￾mestic violence and between women’s alcohol abuse
and child abuse. All these factors were associated with
family disruption and the disappearance of traditional
restraints and mechanisms.
18 Women and Women’s Organizations in Postconflict Societies
of violence—one that condoned violence
and viewed violent behavior as normal.
Moreover, both men and women were
traumatized by war, heightening family
tensions. Alcohol consumption increased
in nearly all countries, contributing to the
increased domestic abuse of both women
and children. Since women’s status within
the family often declined, women became
more susceptible to maltreatment by male
members. Finally, during the prolonged
wartime absence of men, some women
became more independent and self￾reliant. Some returning men resented that
independence and resorted to violence to
assert their authority.
The international community sup￾ported programs (albeit on a modest scale)
designed to assist victims of domestic vio￾lence. The programs counseled victims
and arranged for legal assistance when nec￾essary. In addition, they provided for tem￾porary shelters and often arranged voca￾tional training so that victims could learn
skills to earn a living. They also under￾took public education activities. But these
projects faced social and cultural obstacles.
In many countries, domestic violence is
considered normal, a circumstance that
prevented such interventions from attract￾ing more resources. Moreover, women are
often unaware of the help available from
donor-funded interventions. Even when
they have known about such programs,
women often have not sought help for fear
of being subjected to more violence.
Finally, programs rarely targeted men,
who must be counseled and educated to
stop the cycle of domestic violence. Conse￾quently, only a small minority of women
victims benefited from international inter￾ventions in domestic violence.
Economic Impacts
Woman-Headed Households
As already suggested, intrastate con￾flicts contributed to an increase in woman￾headed households in practically all case￾study societies. Although rare before the
war in Cambodia, woman-headed house￾holds now constitute 25–30 percent of all
families in the country (UNDP 1998). In the
Ixcan region of Guatemala, woman￾headed households were not uncommon
before the conflict, but their proportion
increased during the war, and they now
constitute 30–50 percent of all households
in the region.
There are obvious reasons for this
development. More men than women
were killed in the conflicts, resulting in
demographic imbalances. Many women
were widowed, while others of marriage-
“After 1979, men changed. Nine out of
ten men are broken, nasty. During the
Khmer Rouge period they had no
happiness. So now that they are free,
men do what they want . . . . When a
husband dislikes something, even the
smallest thing, he will become violent.
He will hit his wife.”
—A Cambodian woman
Impacts of Intrastate Conflicts on Women 19
able age could not find suitable husbands.
Conflict also led to large-scale movements
of populations, social and economic
stresses, and the prolonged absence of
men, which contributed to the breakdown
of families, permanent separation, and
divorce. In El Salvador a significant por￾tion of the male population left the coun￾try in search of income and employment,
leaving their families behind.*
In Georgia
many men were so ashamed of not being
able to provide for their families that they
abandoned them.†
Woman-headed households faced
new economic and social challenges dur￾ing the postconflict transition. A major
problem was the lack of property rights.
In Cambodia, El Salvador, Mozambique,
and Rwanda, widows faced obstacles in
acquiring legal rights to the land owned
by their husbands. Until this past year,
Rwandan women could not inherit land
and property under customary law. As a
result, thousands of war widows were
deprived of the legal ownership of their
husbands’ or parents’ farms. The situation
was different in Cambodia, where laws
provided for the legal ownership of land,
but widows encountered problems gain￾ing legal possession because of their low
social status and the indifference of local
authorities. In El Salvador, women were
denied fair allotments in the postwar
redistribution of land. ‡
 In Guatemala,
women had difficulty exercising newly
legislated land ownership and inheritance
rights because of ignorance of those rights,
institutional negligence, and pervasive
machismo.
Woman-headed agricultural house￾holds, particularly those headed by wid￾ows and divorcées, often lacked the
resources to purchase seeds, pesticides,
fertilizers, and starter livestock. In Cam￾bodia and Rwanda, international donors
provided seeds and simple implements
to subsistence farmers. These efforts,
though not always adequate, gave relief
to many women farmers. However, except
in Rwanda, such assistance was not avail￾able to all women farmers. Moreover,
because of food shortages, some women
farmers consumed the seeds instead of
planting them. When harvest season
arrived, women farmers often had to sell
their agricultural surplus locally because
they lacked transportation to take the
goods to larger markets, thus depriving
these producers of higher prices.
Women farmers also experienced
shortages of farm labor. Lacking the re￾sources to hire workers, women often had
“I cannot inherit land. If I stay on my
father’s land, I am put in prison. I have
already been beaten. My life is very
bad since my parents died. I cannot
even grow a potato or cut down a tree.”
—A Rwandan woman
*
In western Kosovo, more than 2,000 men, some of
whom were being held in Serbian jails, were missing.
†This finding has been emphasized by Buck and others
(2000).
‡Women’s land in El Salvador was the first to be confis￾cated during the land reform effort.
20 Women and Women’s Organizations in Postconflict Societies
to depend on the generosity of their rela￾tives and friends, which was not always
forthcoming. In some countries, tradi￾tional gender roles hindered women fur￾ther. In Guatemala, tradition forbade Maya
women from cultivating corn, and many
had to force their young sons to perform
the necessary work. Finally, new women
farmers in most postconflict societies
found it difficult to get technical advice
for their agricultural operations. Agricul￾tural extension services did not exist in
most cases, and when available the ser￾vices rarely reached women farmers.
A substantial number of woman￾headed households in the case-study
societies did not own land or other assets.
Women heading such households worked
as landless laborers or sharecroppers.
They received minimal compensation for
their hard work and barely managed to
feed their families. In urban areas most
women worked in the informal sector,
carving out a living through petty trading.
Because many women lacked marketable
skills, experience, and education, only a
small portion could secure employment
in the organized industrial and service
sectors. Women were easy targets for
labor contractors who recruited for low￾paying sweatshops in Guatemala and
other countries.
In most case-study countries, woman￾headed households were among the poor￾est of the poor. But some woman-headed
households included males who worked
in other towns or other countries and regu￾larly sent money home. Such households
were often in a better economic position
than other woman-headed households.
The international community has
learned that programs targeted exclu￾sively to woman-headed households are
not highly effective. Precise information
about such households often is lacking,
and the cost of identifying them is high.
Targeted programs may create dissension
locally between woman-headed house￾holds and other poor households because
the poor resent special treatment of any
specific group. In addition to creating such
animosity, the cost of delivering targeted
assistance can be high. Nevertheless,
experience also shows that programs tar￾geted toward women are necessary to pro￾vide them adequate assistance. Thus, the
international community has followed a
twofold strategy in postconflict societies.
First, international donors have provided
assistance to all women, not exclusively
to woman-headed households. Second,
international organizations have sup￾ported expanded property rights for
women, which would directly benefit
woman-headed households.
Poverty and Its Consequences
In all case-study countries intrastate
conflicts contributed to a marked increase
in poverty. In Cambodia and Rwanda, con￾flicts also led to severe food shortages in
certain areas. There is anecdotal evidence
that the number of women living in pov￾erty increased disproportionately com￾pared with the number of men living in
poverty, but reliable data are not available.
Impacts of Intrastate Conflicts on Women 21
The consequences of poverty were
invariably worse for women than for men
in all case-study countries. As the tradi￾tional nurturers of their families, women
usually sacrificed their own welfare for
that of other family members during peri￾ods of economic adversity. Because men
controlled most of the assets, the house￾hold allocation of food and resources was
often biased toward men and boys.
Women’s intake of nutrients declined
more than men’s during and after conflict,
and girls’ health and education needs
received lower priority than those of boys.
The economic conditions of three cat￾egories of women—returning women
refugees, women who had depended on
public assistance, and members of woman￾headed households—worsened during
the postconflict transition.
While they lived in camps, women
refugees received food and shelter and
had access to health and education facili￾ties.*
 But after repatriation, women were
on their own, with less consistent or greatly
reduced outside assistance. In many cases,
their standard of living declined.
Poor women who had depended on
food subsidies and social services (particu￾larly health and education) before the con￾flict often suffered when the government
reallocated resources toward the military
during the civil war. In many cases, the
lives of these poor women worsened—at
least in the short term—during the post￾conflict transition because of economic
reforms. International financial institu￾tions insisted on economic stabilization
through monetary and fiscal discipline,
resulting in cuts in social expenditures.
Although such reforms were essential to
put economies on sound footing, vulner￾able groups—particularly women—bore
the majority of sacrifices. The social safety
net programs funded by the international
community were insufficient to make up
the loss.
The economic challenges faced by
woman-headed households were dis￾cussed in the previous section. Additional
burdens, including separated children,
HIV/AIDS, and mental and physical stress
all contributed to the problems of women
who headed households.
“Among the woman-headed
households [in Guatemala], those
headed by widows face a series of
particular problems and hardships.
Widows are disadvantaged by virilocal
residence patterns, the tendency to
patrilineal inheritance, the sexual
division of labor, and a lack of
employment opportunities for women.
The high level of loss of male kin
suffered by some households only
exacerbated these problems. The war
widow, and those close to her, became
stigmatized and isolated; her children
often labeled as ‘children of the
guerrilla.’”
—Loughna and Vicente (1997, 41)
*Some refugees living abroad sought shelter with fam￾ily, ethnic communities, or others. These refugees found
their own means of survival without the assistance of
the international community.
22 Women and Women’s Organizations in Postconflict Societies
The international community sup￾ported an array of programs to relieve ex￾treme poverty and deprivation in post￾conflict societies. International donors
provided food aid to Bosnia and Herze￾govina, Cambodia, El Salvador, and
Rwanda and tried to ensure that women
and woman-headed households received
a fair share of food assistance. The inter￾national community also funded social
safety net programs to alleviate economic
hardships and promoted income-generat￾ing activities among women through
microcredit. Job training and health care
projects—including reproductive and
mental health programs—were devel￾oped. Finally, the international community
also supported legislative and adminis￾trative reforms to increase women’s access
to productive assets. For example, in prac￾tically all case-study countries, interna￾tional donors and NGOs funded projects
to guarantee property rights for women
and to end discrimination in labor
markets.
Labor Force Participation
Desperate economic conditions and
the increasing numbers of woman-headed
households forced more women to enter
labor markets. Conflicts eroded the tradi￾tional social and political order, leading
women to assume new economic roles and
responsibilities.
In all countries except Bosnia and
Herzegovina, women’s participation in
agriculture increased both during and
after conflict. In the absence of men,
women performed many tasks that previ￾ously had been done only by men.
Women worked on their own family
farms, on others’ land as sharecroppers,
and as landless laborers. In some coun￾tries, including Rwanda, the government
made surplus land available to women
for cultivation. In Guatemala and El Sal￾vador, women found work in the grow￾ing nontraditional agricultural export
sector. Women’s employment in labor￾intensive agricultural exports increased
their family incomes and provided a
modicum of economic security and social
freedom.
Because of the shortage of labor dur￾ing conflicts, women could work in many
industries and occupations previously
unavailable to them. These openings pro￾vided them with experience and confi-
“My children and I came back to my
village. We had no food, nothing. . . .
Our neighbors took pity and gave us
some food. We often went to bed
without food.”
—A woman refugee in Mozambique
“When government sold the factory, I
lost my job. Now, I work as a
housemaid.”
—A housemaid in Cambodia
Impacts of Intrastate Conflicts on Women 23
dence to help them during postconflict
transition.*
In Cambodia, women worked
in textile factories, construction, and salt
and rubber production during the conflict
and have been working in them ever since.
Women workers in textile factories gained
experience as well as good reputations,
which facilitated their employment in the
garment industry after the war. Women
currently make up more than 80 percent
of the workers in Cambodia’s garment
industry. In El Salvador and Guatemala,
most of the employees in assembly plants
that process exports are women. The in￾creased presence of the international com￾munity during and immediately after con￾flict also created significant employment
opportunities for women. International
organizations recruited women in large
numbers as secretaries, translators, office
managers, and professional staff. However,
employment by the international commu￾nity declined over time.
As economies shrank during the early
phases of the postconflict transition, female
workers in the organized sector suffered.
Often women were the first to be laid off
during retrenchment and were replaced by
returning combatants. This was particu￾larly true if a woman was associated
through her husband with the “losing
side.” Women workers also suffered from
the privatization of state-owned enter￾prises in former communist economies.
The experience of Bosnia and Herze￾govina, Cambodia, and Georgia shows
that women frequently lost their jobs dur￾ing privatization because of the reinstate￾ment of former employees or the closing
of the enterprises themselves. Even when
they continued working in privatized
firms, women often lost medical and other
benefits.
Women often faced job discrimina￾tion in both the public and private sectors.
Women frequently received lower wages
than men for the same work, and they were
less likely than their male counterparts to
advance. Women were likely to be
employed in menial jobs in which men had
little interest.†
 Although many countries
passed legislation or formulated rules pro￾hibiting discrimination against women,
such measures were not enforced rigor￾ously. Indifference, bureaucratic inertia,
political confusion, and the low social and
economic status of women all contributed
to weak enforcement of the laws.
Most women in the case-study soci￾eties worked in the informal sector, earn￾ing their living by selling cooked foods,
vegetables, fruits, clothes, or other house-
*
In examining increased participation in the labor mar￾ket, it is important to note the difference between rural
and urban women. Rural women who had taken over
male roles were often simply more tired; urban women,
by contrast, tended to gain status in society. It also is
important to point out that the results depend on the
stage of the postconflict period: as the economic situa￾tion changes, so does the availability of jobs for women.
†The researchers were unable to obtain quantitative data
on job discrimination, wages, and advancement. But
anecdotal data confirm these widely held beliefs.
24 Women and Women’s Organizations in Postconflict Societies
hold items. Although women were a sig￾nificant part of the informal sector before
the conflicts, their numbers increased dur￾ing the postconflict transition. This
increase reflected the addition of women
who had lost jobs in the formal sector, as
well as the wives of men who had lost
jobs. In fact, a “feminization” of the infor￾mal sector took place in all the case-study
countries.
The international community sup￾ported microcredit programs targeting
women. Loans were advanced to small
groups ranging from 5 to 11 borrowers.
They required no collateral, or only mini￾mal group collateral. The international
community was imaginative in using
microcredit in postconflict settings. For
example, in Cambodia and Rwanda inter￾national donors supported “cow banks,”
a successful program that provided cows
to women who used them to produce milk
and cheese for income. The program stipu￾lated that each woman turn over her cow’s
first calf to the project. Once those calves
were returned, the women were free to
keep or sell any additional calves.
Microcredit programs were generally
successful in the case-study countries. An
overwhelming majority of borrowers used
loans for productive purposes. Although
interest charged did not always cover the
total cost of lending, rates of loan repay￾ment were high and most costs were
recovered. In Bosnia and Herzegovina,
some microcredit programs grew into
communal lending services, creating
local businesses. The most important re￾sult of microcredit programs was much￾needed relief to vulnerable female popu￾lations in rapidly changing environments.
Many illiterate and inexperienced women
started their own businesses with
microcredit, and although their income
and profit margins were low, these women
were able to survive.
Political Impacts
Expansion of Public Roles
All case-study countries saw an
expansion of women’s public roles and
responsibilities during conflict. The chal￾lenges of surviving the absence of men and
the opportunities created by conflict con￾tributed to this expansion.*
“Some women in Mozambique have
attained relative economic and political
autonomy from male domination. This
has been primarily through entrepre￾neurial activity in the grass-roots war
economy.”
—Mark F. Chingano
*Although women’s participation in the political process
increased during conflict, there were instances when
conflict undermined participation. Somalia provides an
interesting case. With the breakdown of political author￾ity, political power passed into the hands of clan elders.
Councils of elders, which replaced government officials
and party functionaries, consisted of male members only.
Thus, women were deprived of any say in community
affairs.
Impacts of Intrastate Conflicts on Women 25
Many women became active at the
community level during conflict. They
organized formal and informal local
groups to provide relief to vulnerable
populations. Women in Bosnia and Herze￾govina managed day care facilities and
voluntary health services in seized com￾munities. Women participated in the dis￾tribution of food aid in Rwanda, and in El
Salvador they founded organizations to
press for the release of political prisoners
and to provide relief to families of the vic￾tims of political repression. In most case￾study countries, women became more en￾gaged in churches, schools, hospitals, and
private charities, usually volunteering
their services. They also established self￾help groups in urban and rural areas.
In the absence of men, women often
took charge of local political institutions.
During 1985–88 in El Salvador, 33 out of
262 mayors elected (13 percent) were
women. Because they had organized po￾litically before the peace accords and the
formation of political parties, women also
won seats in the legislature. After the fall
of the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia,
women’s representation in village coun￾cils increased dramatically. Other coun￾tries, including Lebanon and Mozam￾bique, witnessed a similar phenomenon.
Women also entered the public arena
to support war efforts. They raised funds,
organized public meetings and marches,
and mobilized public opinion for war in
the name of ideology, ethnicity, and nation￾alism. Women joined militias in Cambo￾dia and El Salvador. They played support￾ing roles in military operations in other
countries by managing auxiliary services
such as health and intelligence operations.
Some women rejected military solutions
and founded organizations to end warfare,
becoming powerful voices in the peace
process.
In many cases, the expansion of
women’s public roles enhanced their
social and political positions in their coun￾tries. Women activists represented a new
vision of gender equality. They redefined
traditional roles, and they projected a new
self-confidence. The number of committed
and politically perceptive women leaders
increased, and many assumed leadership
roles in the postwar era.
Other women became disillusioned
with mainstream political parties and
broke ranks. For example, women lead￾ers who had worked hard for the
Farabundo Martí National Liberation
Front in El Salvador felt that the FMLN’s
leadership was not committed to gender
equality. The women founded Women for
Dignity and Life (Dignas) to promote a
feminist agenda outside the FMLN. The
organization established close working
relationships with a variety of governmen￾tal and voluntary institutions to promote
women’s empowerment.
In Cambodia, women refugees who
had gained skills and organizational
experience in overseas refugee camps
returned to play prominent roles in grass-
26 Women and Women’s Organizations in Postconflict Societies
roots advocacy organizations. In Rwanda,
women’s leadership in the microcredit
activities of rural women’s associations led
directly to the elections of women to both
reserved and open seats in local govern￾ment councils.
Postwar Retrenchment
And Political Participation
Once hostilities ceased, most case￾study countries witnessed a retreat of
women from public life. This was most
visible in postconflict elections held to
establish democratic governments. Al￾though women made up at least half of
the electorate, they were represented only
marginally in national legislatures. For
example, five women were elected to the
National Assembly in Cambodia, repre￾senting only 6 percent of elected represen￾tatives. The situation was similar in Gua￾temala, where women held only 7.5
percent of the seats in Parliament. In Bos￾nia and Herzegovina the House of Repre￾sentatives seated only 1 woman in the 42-
member chamber. Women’s representation
was better in El Salvador and Mozam￾bique, where women occupied 11 percent
and 25 percent of the seats, respectively.
Three factors seemed to have contrib￾uted to this postwar retrenchment. First
was the psychological stress of war, which
generated nostalgia for the traditional
social and political order in which women
enjoyed only marginal roles in public life.
After the peace accord in Cambodia, for
example, some of the Cambodian elite
clamored for the old order, which was seen
as free from social and cultural strife. A
few social and religious leaders in Bosnia
and Herzegovina and in Guatemala de￾manded a return to traditional values and
norms. The most vivid contemporary
example of the return to tradition is
Afghanistan, where women are deprived
of all political and social rights.
Second, war fatigue gripped some
women leaders and workers and contrib￾uted to their decisions to leave public life.
Women who had shouldered heavy pub￾lic burdens in addition to their familial
responsibilities were physically and
emotionally exhausted by the end of the
conflict and relieved to give up public
activism.
The third—and perhaps the most sig￾nificant—factor in women’s retreat from
public life was that men sought to reas￾sert their authority once they were freed
from preoccupation with war. Although
they regarded women’s participation in
politics as a necessity during conflict, many
men considered such activism inappropri￾ate in the postconflict era.
However, other factors contributed to
increasing women’s political participation.
First, the establishment of democratic sys￾tems opened new political space for
women. As a part of the peace accords,
many war-torn societies (Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Cambodia, and Guatemala)
drafted new constitutions based on the
principles of democracy and equality. In
Impacts of Intrastate Conflicts on Women 27
El Salvador the existing constitution was
revised to pave the way for democracy.
One distinguishing feature of the
revised and new constitutions was the
explicit recognition of gender equality. All
constitutions provided equal political
rights to women, and a few tried to estab￾lish quotas for them in local and national
legislative bodies. Thus, new opportuni￾ties for women were codified as part of
the postconflict societies, and women re￾sponded with enthusiasm.
Second, as discussed in the next chap￾ter, the growth of women’s organizations
further expanded women’s public roles
during the postconflict era. To promote
women’s welfare and gender equality,
women leaders and workers founded
many new organizations and revitalized
existing ones in all case-study countries.
Women’s organizations have emerged as
powerful forces in Bosnia and Herze￾govina, El Salvador, Guatemala, and
Rwanda, but their influence has been
much more limited in Cambodia and
Georgia.
Finally, the international community
influenced the political aspirations and
behavior of women in the case-study coun￾tries by advocating their social, economic,
and political empowerment. Many multi￾lateral and bilateral donors funded visits
by women leaders to international meet￾ings and conferences on gender issues.
International women’s NGOs established
branches in postconflict societies or affili￾ated themselves with indigenous groups.
The activities funded by international
donor agencies to promote democracy,
although not concentrating exclusively on
women’s political participation, also
helped struggling women’s groups and
organizations assume new political roles
and responsibilities.
“If women continue to perform the
public functions that they assumed
during the crisis, the men will have
nothing to do, and we will end up
taking care of lazy men who become
yet another dependent [child] for us to
look after.”
—A woman leader from Somalia
(Lewis 1997)
“Noting the fact that Eritrean women’s
heroic participation in the struggle for
independence and solidarity based on
equality and mutual respect generated
by such struggle will serve as an
unshakable foundation for our commit￾ment and struggle to create a society
in which women and men will interact
on the basis of mutual respect,
fraternity, and equality . . . .”
—From the preamble to the
Eritrean constitution
28 Women and Women’s Organizations in Postconflict Societies
Despite a brief era of disfranchise￾ment, women in postconflict societies
have made headway in the political arena.
For example, the percentage of women
members in national legislatures in￾creased after the first postconflict elections
in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, El
Salvador, and Georgia. The representation
of women in ministries of national gov￾ernments also improved over time in case￾study countries, and women gained seats
in elections to local government bodies.
For example, the percentage of women city
councilors in El Salvador increased from
only 3 percent during the conflict to 14
percent in the 1993 elections. By the 1999
elections, the percentage of women had
almost doubled from the 1993 percentage.
The Emergence
And Contributions
Of Women’s
Organizations
HAPTER 3 EXAMINED the impact of
intrastate conflicts on women and
gender relations. This chapter concen￾trates on the emergence—and in many
cases reemergence—of women’s organiza￾tions that addressed women’s problems
and promoted gender equality in the case￾study countries. The chapter discusses the
organizations’ activities, their contribu￾tions to the empowerment of women, and
the problems they face. Finally, it exam￾ines the factors affecting organization per￾formance and the vexing issue of sustain￾ability.
Growth of Women’s
Organizations During
Postconflict Transition
As conceptualized here, the term
“women’s organizations” refers to all vol￾untary organizations led and managed by
women that promote women’s welfare and
gender equality. This definition includes
a variety of organizations, ranging from
grass-roots groups to national advocacy
organizations designed to influence pub￾lic policies.
C
4
It is difficult to estimate the precise
number of women’s organizations in the
case-study countries. Official statistics in￾cluded only organizations registered with
the government or a regulatory agency. At
the same time, many registered organiza￾tions existed only on paper. To complicate
the problem, many grass-roots women’s
organizations were classified simply as
welfare or economic organizations. De￾spite these difficulties, there is a consen￾sus among experts that there were hun￾dreds of women’s organizations in Bosnia
and Herzegovina, El Salvador, Guatemala,
and Rwanda, but numbers were much
smaller in Cambodia and Georgia. Most
of the organizations emerged at the end
of conflict.
Four overarching factors contributed
to the growth of women’s organizations.
The first was the social, economic, and politi￾cal transformations that took place during the
conflicts. As discussed in the previous
chapter, conflicts not only undermined the
traditional social order but also facilitated
increased participation of women in pub￾lic affairs. Many women acquired new con￾fidence, new skills, and a new vision for
30 Women and Women’s Organizations in Postconflict Societies
the future. Consequently, by the end of the
conflicts, women were able to take the lead
in forming organizations to pursue their
interests and agendas.
Many women’s organizations
emerged in El Salvador and (to a lesser
extent) in Guatemala during the civil wars.
These groups drew support from leftist
political parties, churches, other religious
organizations, and trade unions. The
organizations worked on the problems
associated with political repression. El
Salvador’s Fenestra, Comadres, and
Dignas and Guatemala’s National Coor￾dinating Committee of Widows of Guate￾mala (Conavigua) illustrate this category.
International humanitarian agencies
formed partnerships with existing or
newly created groups to deliver assistance
to targeted populations. For example, the
UN High Commissioner for Refugees
helped form many volunteer groups led
by women during the conflict in Bosnia.
With the establishment of peace, many of
these groups expanded their activities,
reinventing themselves as full-fledged
women’s organizations.
The experience women gained in
refugee camps often prepared them for
leadership roles and indirectly contrib￾uted to the formation of some women’s
organizations. Women often received edu￾cation and training there and participated
in camp activities. They also formed
groups to promote their welfare as refu￾gees. For example, women refugees from
Guatemala established several organi￾zations in Mexico in the 1990s (Loughna
1999). When they returned home, they
transplanted them to their communities.
Mamá Maquin, an organization of Maya
women established in 1990 in Mexico, pro￾vides a good example. Its members trans￾ferred Mamá Maquin to Guatemala after
their repatriation, expanded the organi￾zations’s objectives, and redefined its man￾date. In El Salvador, returning women
refugees resurrected some of the organi￾zations they had formed in camps.In Cam￾bodia, many leaders of postconflict
women’s organizations emerged from the
ranks of refugees living in camps on the
Thai border. Internally displaced women
in Georgia also successfully established
nonpartisan organizations to address
women’s problems.
The second factor contributing to the
growth of women’s organizations was the
disillusionment of women leaders with leftist
political parties who initially professed
commitment to gender equality but later
reneged on the commitment. This disillu￾sionment led women to organize their own
groups to advance feminist agendas
(Stephen 1997). The establishment of
Dignas, a women’s organization in El Sal￾vador, illustrates this point. At the begin￾ning of the peace process, Dignas’s
founders declared their independence
from the National Resistance Party, which
was affiliated with the Farabundo Martí
National Liberation Front, and started an
organization to address women’s prob￾lems. In Nicaragua, however, disillusioned
women leaders did not abandon the
Sandinistas, nor did they form indepen￾dent organizations. By contrast, many
The Emergence and Contributions of Women’s Organizations 31
women leaders of the ruling parties in
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, and
Georgia founded nonpartisan women’s
organizations.
The third factor was the reforms initi￾ated by transition governments as a part of the
peace process, which created political space
to establish new women’s organizations.
Before the advent of peace, the avenues
for forming such organizations were
extremely limited. Only El Salvador,
Guatemala, and Rwanda provided some
freedom during the conflicts to form vol￾untary organizations. But even in those
countries the governments carefully moni￾tored organizations and repressed those
suspected of disloyalty. In Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Cambodia, and Georgia,
totalitarian communist regimes permitted
no independent organizations. The con￾cept of voluntary civil society organi￾zations was anathema to them. Those con￾ditions changed during and after the
peace process. The establishment of de￾mocracy, the codification of the right to or￾ganize, and the emergence of relatively
unfettered media gave women unprec￾edented freedom to form organizations
independent from the government.
The fourth factor was the assistance for
relief and reconstruction that the international
community provided case-study coun￾tries. That this assistance was channeled
largely through NGOs contributed tremen￾dously to the growth of women’s organi￾zations. The international community
worked to build up civil society institu￾tions in these countries as a counterweight
to the state. Moreover, in most of the case￾study countries public bureaucratic struc￾tures were brittle—and unable to deliver
goods and services to needy populations.
Therefore, the international community
had no alternative other than to channel
assistance through women’s organi￾zations.
There was an additional reason for the
international community to channel assis￾tance through women’s organizations.
Experience had shown that women’s
organizations are generally more effective
than mixed or male-dominated organiza￾tions at reaching out to women.*
 Women’s
organizations have a comparative advan￾tage over mixed or male-dominated orga￾nizations because they are better able to
empathize with women. Further, they con￾tribute to the social and psychological
empowerment of women by teaching self￾reliance and leadership skills. Conse￾quently, the international community
made a concerted effort to establish and
strengthen women’s organizations in the
case-study countries. In addition to chan￾neling assistance through existing
women’s groups, many international pri￾vate voluntary organizations—such as
Care, Oxfam, and Catholic Relief Ser￾vices—encouraged women to form new
organizations to avail themselves of hu￾manitarian and developmental assistance.
*The unpublished studies by Marina Ottaway and Tho￾mas Carothers, both from Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, indicate that women’s organizations
were more efficient and effective than other civil society
organizations.
32 Women and Women’s Organizations in Postconflict Societies
Factors specific to each country deter￾mined the nature of international efforts.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina the interna￾tional community mobilized large num￾bers of highly educated women profes￾sionals who had become unemployed
because of the conflict. A similar course
was not feasible in Cambodia, where the
Khmer Rouge had wiped out the educated
middle class. Therefore, international do￾nors to Cambodia depended on a small
group of educated women drawn from ex￾patriates, refugees, and former leaders of
state-run women’s organizations. As men￾tioned earlier, many women’s organiza￾tions emerged in El Salvador and Cambo￾dia during the prolonged conflict. The
international community strengthened
these nascent groups and used them to
channel assistance during postconflict
transition. In Rwanda, genocide and mas￾sive migration undermined practically all
women’s organizations. International do￾nors helped revive some women’s orga￾nizations and led to the creation of many
others. In Georgia, international donors
targeted the development of women’s or￾ganizations to help internally displaced
families and to promote women’s politi￾cal participation.
Two additional factors contributed to
the emergence of women leaders and or￾ganizations in the case-study countries.
The first was the influence of feminist
scholars and organizations based in Eu￾rope and the United States. Their ideas
broadened the intellectual horizons of
many women leaders, providing new
ways of analyzing gender issues. The sec￾ond factor was the homecoming of edu￾cated women who had migrated to West￾ern countries during the conflict. These
women had imbibed ideas of freedom and
gender equality and sought to pass them
on. The role of former expatriates was
especially significant in Cambodia.
Nature of Women’s
Organizations
Most women’s organizations in the
case-study countries fall into three over￾lapping categories: grass-roots organiza￾tions, regional and national organizations,
and national umbrella organizations.
The first category consists of small
grass-roots women’s organizations formed
to help women victims of the conflict.
These organizations emphasized helping
the most vulnerable: the displaced, trau￾matized, sexually abused, destitute, and
widowed. Examples include Medica
Zenica, which provided medical and psy￾chological assistance to sexually abused
women in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and
Koka, a Georgian cooperative farming so￾ciety founded on the principles of mutual
help. Microenterprise groups supported
by the international community also fall
into this category. For example, thousands
of women’s groups have been working in
Rwanda, mobilizing women for both eco￾nomic and social development (Newbury
and Baldwin 2000b).
Often, these grass-roots women’s or￾ganizations were not known outside their
The Emergence and Contributions of Women’s Organizations 33
communities. Many were not registered
and not included in official statistics. Their
leaders, though they generally came from
the intelligentsia, were not always well
known or well connected. These grass￾roots organizations represented the true
face of civil society in the case-study coun￾tries. They reflected the values of trust,
mutual help, and democratic participa￾tion, contributing to what Robert Putnam
calls “social capital.” The international
community directly funded many of these
organizations.
The second category of organizations
consists of regional and national women’s
organizations. These organizations were
patterned on Western NGOs. They had
written constitutions, a management
structure, and boards of directors with
varying levels of involvement and over￾sight. They employed paid, full-time pro￾fessional and technical staff. Their leader￾ship came from the middle and upper
middle classes. Some of these organiza￾tions had close ties to the bureaucratic, po￾litical, and economic elite. These organi￾zations operated in specific sectors:
agriculture, microenterprise, education,
health, and family planning. Many orga￾nizations also advocated reform related to
gender issues. This category of women’s
organizations generally received funds
from more than one international donor
organization.
The last category consists of the na￾tional umbrella organizations that sup￾ported grass-roots organizations. These
organizations were located in capital cit￾ies. International donor agencies often
established partnerships with national
associations to facilitate assistance to
grass-roots groups. In addition to channel￾ing national and international assistance,
the umbrella organizations’ activities in￾cluded training and technical assistance
and lobbying on behalf of their members.
These organizations were similar in lead￾ership, structure, and goals to those in the
second category, but they were not en￾gaged in managing their own projects.
Activities of Women’s
Organizations
Women’s organizations were active in
almost every important sector in case￾study countries. The breadth of their
interventions is impressive. The following
discussion highlights some activities
The National Coordinating Committee
of Widows of Guatemala (known as
Conavigua) was founded in 1988 to
help widows and orphans of the civil
war in Guatemala. In addition to
providing food, health care, and
education, it filed lawsuits in behalf of
women who had suffered from rape,
kidnapping, illegal detention, and
destruction of property. Its activities
have helped thousands of Maya
women in various parts of the country.
In 1996 the organization expanded its
mandate to include fighting against
gender and class discrimination at the
local and national levels.
34 Women and Women’s Organizations in Postconflict Societies
they undertook in health, income genera￾tion, social problems, democracy and hu￾man rights, and advocacy for gender
equality during the postconflict era.
Health
Because health services were in a
shambles following conflict, women’s or￾ganizations entered the health sector early.
They established health clinics, provided
reproductive health care, and organized
mass vaccination programs. Many orga￾nizations also developed modest pro￾grams in psychosocial healing for trauma￾tized women. These programs sponsored
support groups, provided psychological
counseling, and in some cases arranged
for psychotherapy. As the awareness and
incidence of HIV/AIDS and other sexually
transmitted diseases grew, women’s orga￾nizations also started targeting these dis￾eases. Few organizations with substantial
grants from international donors were
able to afford the expensive treatment of
HIV/AIDS. Most, including the Indradevi
Association in Cambodia and the Cambo￾dian Women’s Development Agency, en￾gaged in research and prevention.
Income Generation
Women’s organizations organized
vocational training and other programs to
generate income and employment for
women and woman-headed households.
With the influx of the expatriate popula￾tion in the early 1990s, Cambodia, for ex￾ample, faced an acute shortage of secre￾taries, receptionists, cooks, and waitresses.
Women’s organizations sponsored train￾ing programs to prepare young women for
these occupations. In El Salvador and Gua￾temala, organizations provided women
training in carpentry, masonry, auto repair,
and poultry and cattle raising. Women’s
organizations were heavily involved in
microcredit programs, enabling women to
start their own microenterprises in all case￾study countries. A few women’s organi￾zations were active in the agricultural sec￾tor. In Cambodia, grass-roots women’s
groups provided agricultural extension
services to struggling women farmers. In
El Salvador and Guatemala, women’s or￾ganizations supported women farmers
producing nontraditional agricultural
exports.
Social Problems
Women’s organizations addressed a
wide variety of social problems that
plagued postconflict societies. For ex￾ample, they launched programs against
Pro-Femmes/Twese Hamwe Collective
is the largest association of women’s
organizations in Rwanda, with 35
member organizations. Most have their
offices in the capital but work in towns
and cities nationwide. Pro-Femmes
contributed to dialog among the
government, women’s organizations,
and donor agencies about the need to
target development assistance to
women and also influenced national
policies and programs.
The Emergence and Contributions of Women’s Organizations 35
domestic violence in Cambodia, El Salva￾dor, Guatemala, and Rwanda, providing
legal, medical, and emotional support to
victims. Organizations such as the Cam￾bodian Women’s Crisis Center and El
Salvador’s Conamus and Mélida Anaya
Montes ran shelters for abused women.
Women’s organizations coordinated me￾dia events to educate people about this
problem. In Cambodia, women’s organi￾zations concentrated on the plight of com￾mercial sex workers, offering them legal
assistance, screenings for sexually trans￾mitted diseases, and shelter for those who
wanted to leave their professions. In El Sal￾vador, women’s groups tackled the prob￾lems of child abuse and child support.
Other women’s organizations in El Salva￾dor, Cambodia, and Guatemala held lit￾eracy or language classes, often combin￾ing training with maternal and child care
to reach a wider audience.
Democracy and Human Rights
Women’s organizations have been
active in promoting democracy and hu￾man rights. In El Salvador, Comadres was
a pioneer in raising human rights issues.
It publicly denounced the disappearance,
arrest, and assassination of people by the
regime. Several Guatemalan organizations
struggled for human rights during the civil
wars. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambo￾dia, El Salvador, and Guatemala, women’s
organizations provided many services to
help organize postconflict elections. They
participated in voter registration drives,
held voter education programs, and as￾sisted in election monitoring. In addition,
they promoted social reconciliation among
former enemies. Women’s organizations
sponsored meetings, seminars, and
marches to promote mutual understand￾ing and goodwill. Pro-Femmes and its
member organizations, for example, as￾sisted Hutu women whose husbands were
in jail in Rwanda.
Advocacy for Gender Equality
Women’s organizations also under￾took activities to fight sexual discrimina￾tion and to promote gender equality. Sev￾eral organizations worked to increase
women’s participation in political affairs
by providing assistance to women candi￾dates, irrespective of their political affili￾ations. Other organizations developed
women’s platforms and sought the en￾dorsement of their issues by political par￾ties, while yet others publicly demanded
that mainstream parties field more women
candidates. Women’s organizations also
lobbied legislatures and governments for
specific reforms regarding gender equal￾ity. In Guatemala, Mamá Maquin and other
groups successfully lobbied for legisla￾tion granting land rights to women, and
Conavigua lobbied on gender and human
rights issues. Women’s organizations in El
Salvador, Cambodia, and Rwanda also
worked to advance property rights for
women. Many women’s groups devel￾oped public education programs on gen￾der issues. The Women’s Media Center
of Cambodia, for example, used television
to increase awareness of gender issues.
36 Women and Women’s Organizations in Postconflict Societies
Obstacles and Limitations
To Women’s Organizations
In carrying out the activities men￾tioned in the previous section, women’s
organizations faced numerous obstacles
and suffered from internal weaknesses
that undermined their performance and
achievements. A few common obstacles
and limitations most women’s organiza￾tions faced are identified here to indicate
the challenges that lie ahead.
In the case-study countries, cultural
and social factors hampered women’s or￾ganizations. One variable was women’s
low status. In practically all countries,
women played a subservient role to men.
Moreover, in the aftermath of conflict, Bos￾nia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, and
Rwanda experienced some cultural reviv￾alism, a euphoria for cultural traditions
that often glorified the role of women as
mothers and housewives. Consequently,
an influential segment of the political elite
did not relish the prospect of women tak￾ing on leadership roles in public affairs.*
At the same time, because of their low
social status, many leaders of women’s
organizations were not in a position to
interact as equals with their male counter￾parts. Women in grass-roots organizations
often faced disapproval from male rela￾tives who were concerned that if women
became involved in outside activities, they
would not devote adequate time to house￾hold chores. This was particularly signifi￾cant in Cambodia and Rwanda, less so in
El Salvador and Guatemala.
Communication also proved a major
barrier for women. For example, because
members of Maya women’s organizations
could not converse well in Spanish, they
were disadvantaged when compared with
ladino organizations. Grass-roots women’s
organizations in Cambodia, El Salvador,
and Rwanda faced different communica￾tion problems. Their members and lead￾ers generally came from low socioeco￾nomic strata, so government officials and
political leaders paid inadequate attention
to their grievances and demands. Nor
could these grass-roots groups communi￾cate effectively with officials of interna￾tional organizations. As a result, both the
problems and achievements of many
grass-roots women’s organizations re￾mained unappreciated by the international
community.
Another hindrance to women’s orga￾nizations was the disabling environment
of postconflict societies. All the case-study
countries were beset with social unrest
and adverse economic conditions at the
end of conflict. In ethnically divided soci￾eties, such as Rwanda and Bosnia and
Herzegovina, resentment and anger
toward members of opposing ethnic
groups were rampant, undermining the
effectiveness of public institutions.
Adverse economic conditions, combined
with a demoralized public bureaucracy,
contributed to corruption and inefficiency.
In a few cases the surviving police and
*This has been a general complaint, particularly of smaller
women’s organizations.
The Emergence and Contributions of Women’s Organizations 37
military officials from previous regimes
remained openly resentful of organiza￾tions that had raised their voices against
them in the past. Such has been the case in
El Salvador and Guatemala. Genocide left
Cambodia bereft of social capital and tech￾nical expertise. All these conditions im￾peded women’s organizations and under￾mined their effectiveness. (They affected
other groups as well.)
The inability of international donors
to make long-term commitments was a
persistent problem for women’s organiza￾tions. The maximum donor commitment
was five years, but in most cases grants
had to be renewed annually. Because of
shrinking levels of assistance, renewals
were not automatic. Therefore, many
organizations carried out activities in an
environment of uncertainty and were un￾able to engage in long-term planning.
Such uncertainty and the prospect of un￾employment hurt staff morale and limited
the possibilities for sectoral specialization
among women’s organizations.
In addition to external impediments,
women’s organizations suffered internal
limitations. Many faced management and
leadership problems. The charismatic
leaders who founded some organizations
inspired their constituents and impressed
officials of governments and donor agen￾cies—but they were not always good man￾agers. Often these leaders had little pa￾tience for strategic planning and could not
adhere to budgets or follow bureaucratic
procedures essential for efficient manage￾ment.*
 At the same time, some women with
little commitment to any cause started
women’s organizations to profit from the
abundant donor resources initially avail￾able in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in
Cambodia. They ran their organizations as
personal businesses.
The top leaders of many women’s
organizations were reluctant to delegate
power and to train junior staff for future
“Members felt that the leaders took
advantage of them and compromised
their ability to gain higher positions
within the organization.”
—Unpublished case study of
Conavigua in Guatemala
“The leaders of women’s organizations
treat their organizations as their own
fiefdoms, because they founded them.
Often the junior staff members are
treated as personal servants. Workers
have no choice; there are no jobs.”
—An informant in Cambodia
“You cannot expect these nascent
women’s organizations to have an
effective management structure. You
have to be realistic.”
—A Guatemalan expert
*Management has been a chronic problem. An unpub￾lished paper by Gloria Zamora de García and María
Rosenda Camey (“Gender in Guatemala; Case Studies
of the Association of Mayan Ixil Women, Mama Maquin,
and Kichin Konojel”) documents this for one Central
American country. The authors’ studies note similar
shortcomings in Cambodia and other countries.
38 Women and Women’s Organizations in Postconflict Societies
leadership, because they were concerned
that a professionally trained staff might
challenge their authority. The leaders
themselves monopolized participation in
international training programs, meetings,
and conferences.*
 Middle and junior staff
members who found prospects for up￾ward mobility within the organization
blocked by the top brass were frustrated.
This frustration affected not only the day￾to-day operations of these organizations
but also their long-term viability.
Finally, lack of communication and
cooperation among women’s organiza￾tions limited their effectiveness. All six
case country studies identified this issue.
These organizations often saw one another
as competitors rather than partners work￾ing for the same cause. Personal rivalries
and animosities between leaders, differ￾ences in ideological orientation, a lack of
traditions for voluntary organizations, and
above all, competition for diminishing re￾sources contributed to this tension. As a
result, efforts were often duplicated, the
public image of women’s organizations
was undermined, and skills and expertise
were not shared among organizations.
Women’s Organizations
And Empowerment
Did the aforementioned activities con￾tribute to the empowerment of women?
This is a legitimate question, though
almost impossible to answer. The post￾conflict transition has been a recent pheno￾menon, and most women’s organizations
are relatively new—from six to eight years
old. This is too short a time to examine
the long-term cumulative effects of these
organizations. But a few general observa￾tions based on anecdotal evidence can be
made.
It is necessary to explain what is
meant by empowerment. Although there
are serious differences among experts, the
term “empowerment” generally refers to
an individual’s or a group’s ability to in￾fluence matters affecting its welfare and
interests. In the context of gender relations,
empowerment connotes that women have
the freedom to decide for themselves.
They interact with men from the position
of equality, rather than from perpetual de￾pendence. Thus, women are empowered
when social, cultural, economic, or politi￾cal barriers to their freedom are removed
or eliminated and they can realize their
full potential.
The emergence of women’s organiza￾tions and the myriad activities they under￾took seem to have contributed to women’s
empowerment in the following five ways:
First, women’s organizations helped
women victims of conflict, such as return￾ing refugees and internally displaced
women, those sexually abused during and
after conflict, and other women in desper￾ate situations. Their timely assistance was
often instrumental in enabling these vul￾nerable women to take control of their
*Donors occasionally contribute to the problem, as they
prefer educated, articulate representatives and not ordi￾nary females working in the field.
The Emergence and Contributions of Women’s Organizations 39
shattered lives. Hundreds, perhaps thou￾sands, of vulnerable women profited from
the activities of women’s organizations in
case-study countries. This is undoubtedly
one of the most important contributions
of women’s organizations.
Second, the income-generating activi￾ties of women’s organizations saved
women beneficiaries from utter poverty
and deprivation. They helped beneficia￾ries become economically self-reliant and
perhaps socially less subservient. Empiri￾cal studies have demonstrated a close re￾lationship between economic indepen￾dence and social empowerment. When
women become earning members of the
household, their bargaining position with
male members tends to improve (Hashemi
and others 1996). One can assume that this
finding also applies to the case-study
countries. The beneficiaries of income￾generation programs often told stories of
how their income not only saved them
from extreme poverty but also gave them
a new sense of identity and enhanced so￾cial status.*
Third, by facilitating political partici￾pation through political education, voter
registration drives, and assistance to
women candidates, women’s organiza￾tions contributed to political empower￾ment. By working in these organizations,
many women acquired leadership skills
and experience. Some officers of these
organizations also assumed leadership in
political parties, they contested elections,
and they even held public office.†
 For ex￾ample, the founder of Conavigua in Gua￾temala was elected to the legislature.‡
 In
fact, the organization aligned itself with a
political party. The founder of Khemera,
one of the first women’s organizations in
Cambodia, became a minister in the cur￾rent government.§
Fourth, women’s organizations raised
gender awareness among their members.
“In my view, what really matters in
these situations is money, income. I
have seen it in many countries:
Bosnia, Guatemala, and Mozambique,
and even Kosovo. . . . The moment
women start bringing money, they are
better treated by their husbands, sons,
and everybody else. Women’s
organizations have helped a lot through
microcredit and small loans programs
targeted to women.”
—A woman official of a leading
private voluntary organization
*The author has heard such stories firsthand in many
postconflict societies, including Cambodia and Rwanda.
†Most women’s organizations kept a respectful distance
from active involvement in politics. Their leaders and
members often were disillusioned with party politics
and viewed political parties with an indifference some￾times bordering on contempt. They were convinced that
dominant political parties paid only lip service to gender
issues and believed that only nonpartisan women’s
organizations could represent women’s true interests.
‡The director of the organization, Rosalina Tuyuc, was
elected a member of the Congress of the Republic as a
candidate for the New Guatemalan Democratic Front.
§Many women political leaders preferred not to be asso￾ciated with women’s organizations because they wanted
to cultivate a mainstream public image. This was par￾ticularly true in Georgia, where women political leaders
feared alienating male voters.
40 Women and Women’s Organizations in Postconflict Societies
They organized meetings, workshops, and
discussions. Grass-roots organizations—
such as Mamá Maquin, Kichin Konojel,
and the Association of Mayan Ixil Women
in Guatemala—routinely held workshops
on gender issues for their members. Simi￾lar workshops also were held in Bosnia
and Herzegovina and in El Salvador. Many
women’s organizations disseminated the
findings of international meetings and con￾ferences on women and gender issues. As
a result, members became aware of their
social and political rights, structural fac￾tors contributing to their low status, and
the ways they could improve their predica￾ment.
Fifth, in many case-study countries,
women’s organizations succeeded in put￾ting gender issues on the national agenda.
This was particularly true in El Salvador,
Georgia, Guatemala, and Rwanda. As a
result, national leaders, the intelligentsia,
and public officials started discussing
issues such as family planning, domestic
violence, girls’ education, discrimination
in employment, and women’s property
rights. Women’s organizations were able
to accomplish this for many reasons.
Often, their leaders were members of pow￾erful families within the political and bu￾reaucratic elite and could communicate
their organizations’ agendas directly to
important policymakers. Moreover, be￾cause many grass-roots women’s organi￾zations had acquired followings in their
respective communities, local politicians
concerned about their political base gravi￾tated toward those grass-roots groups. In
El Salvador and Guatemala, mayors of
small towns and cities began consulting
women’s organizations.*
 Finally, women
lobbied their governments and legisla￾tures on matters affecting women’s rights
and problems.
Although women’s organizations con￾tributed to women’s empowerment, their
overall influence was modest, for two rea￾sons. First, because of their small size, lim￾ited numbers, and spare resources, these
organizations could make a difference in
the lives of only a minority of women and
could not effect major institutional
“In organizing ourselves, we had the
opportunity to learn new things and to
get to know our rights as women. We
did not participate before, but now we
have the opportunity. For example, we
now participate in the elections of our
preferred candidates.”
“A consciousness about the
importance of our participation in the
development of our families and
communities and the knowledge
gained through training and experience
in the organization were two important
impacts of Mamá Maquin.”
—Two women members
of Mamá Maquin
*For example, a case study of the Association of Mayan
Ixil Women by Gloria Zamora de García and María
Rosenda Camey noted that the leaders of the associa￾tion have gained political recognition in municipal cor￾poration meetings, in which community planning deci￾sions are made and future activities are planned.
The Emergence and Contributions of Women’s Organizations 41
changes in the case-study societies. Sec￾ond, most of the organizations lacked a
strategic vision of gender relations. They
tried to address specific women’s prob￾lems, rather than advocating for a radical
transformation of their societies.
Sustainability of
Women’s Organizations
The sustainability of women’s orga￾nizations is of paramount concern to all
who are interested in the growth of civil
society and gender equality. If foreign as￾sistance wanes, will these organizations
survive, or will they languish and decay?
There is no simple answer, because con￾ditions vary from country to country and
from organization to organization. Never￾theless, a few general observations about
the requirements for sustainability follow.
Sustainability can be assessed with
reference to three dimensions: financial
sustainability, managerial sustainability,
and outside linkages (Carr and others
1996). Financial sustainability indicates
that an organization can survive without
external funding. Managerial sustainabil￾ity implies that an organization is man￾aged and led by women, or by someone
hired by them. Linkage sustainability
means that an organization is able to work
with various stakeholders to achieve its
objectives.
As far as financial sustainability is con￾cerned, the future of women’s organiza￾tions remains questionable. Most organi￾zations reviewed in this assessment were
largely, if not exclusively, dependent on
international assistance. Most of their bud￾gets came from outside donors, either as
grants or as funds for specific projects.
Most of the organizations were unable to
charge fees for their services. There were,
however, exceptions. Organizations that
lent money for microenterprises were able
to keep a small percentage of the interest
paid by borrowers for administrative ex￾penses. A few organizations created busi￾nesses. These usually sold various handi￾crafts—produced by members, for sale to
the international community—though one
Rwandan NGO opened a paper and school￾supply store to help support its work. In
addition, a few organizations (such as the
Association of Salvadoran Women) had
“Frankly, we cannot survive without
international assistance. It is simply
not possible.”
—Founder of a women’s
organization in Cambodia
“Without external funding, I suspect
that 40 percent of these [women’s]
organizations will close down in
Bosnia–Herzegovina.”
—A USAID official
“I believe that grass-roots women’s
organizations have a better chance of
survival than the large organizations.”
—A civil society specialist
42 Women and Women’s Organizations in Postconflict Societies
established partnerships with the govern￾ment to run specific programs. But an
overwhelming majority of women’s orga￾nizations were not in a position to be self￾sufficient and would not survive without
outside funds.
There are several reasons for the lack
of financial sustainability of women’s
organizations. Women’s groups in post￾conflict societies lacked expertise in fund￾raising and faced other significant ob￾stacles. Governments were (and probably
will remain) under pressure to reduce
public expenditures. Thus they would not
be in a position to support women’s orga￾nizations financially for years to come.
Even if government funding were avail￾able, some organizations might not want
it because such funding could undermine
their autonomy. Private sector funding
cannot fill the gap because private enter￾prise remains in a nascent stage in all case￾study countries, with the possible excep￾tion of El Salvador. Many large private
firms have not yet developed a tradition
for philanthropy and public service.
Consequently, it is unrealistic to expect
women’s organizations to raise enough
money from local sources to fully fund
their activities.
Smaller women’s organizations are in
the most precarious position. They are
unlikely to have the resources and exper￾tise to compete with large organizations,
which have succeeded well in soliciting
funds from the international community.
Many small organizations also face stiff
competition from mixed or men’s volun￾tary organizations that have started devel￾oping projects specifically for women.
Managerial sustainability is not as sig￾nificant a problem as financial sustaina￾bility. Women invariably led and managed
all organizations examined in this study.
Even though many organizations suffered
from managerial problems, they were ac￾quiring experience and expertise. More￾over, in all case-study countries, women
were expanding their experience in man￾aging public institutions, and their tech￾nical capabilities were growing. A new gen￾eration of professional leaders is taking
charge of many organizations, and there
is no reason to believe there will be a
shortage of well-trained and committed
women managing these organizations in
the future.
Linkage sustainability is the capacity of
an organization to develop and maintain
linkages with its stakeholders. In the case
of women’s organizations, three stake￾holders are important.
The first—and undoubtedly most
important—stakeholders are the organ￾ization’s women beneficiaries. Most of the
women’s organizations examined in the
case-study countries have established a
rapport with their beneficiaries through
deep commitment and empathy. In this
they have had (and will continue to have)
a comparative advantage over male-domi￾nated organizations.
The second category of stakeholders
includes government agencies and depart-
The Emergence and Contributions of Women’s Organizations 43
ments. A good working relationship with
government is essential for women’s or￾ganizations so they can obtain political and
perhaps financial support. Most women’s
organizations in the case-study countries
have begun paying attention to local and
national government. Even the organiza￾tions that wanted at first to remain aloof
from the government came to recognize
the value of maintaining a good relation￾ship. Cambodia is a case in point. During
the late 1980s and early 1990s, when donor
agencies were vying with one another to
fund Cambodian women’s organizations,
the organizations adopted an attitude of
benign neglect toward the government.
With a decline in external funding and im￾provements in public bureaucracy, those
organizations began reconsidering their
earlier postures.
The last category of stakeholders is
external funding agencies. Most of the
women’s organizations that received
funds from international donors had ac￾quired a good understanding of those
funders. Whether those organizations will
be able to tap other philanthropic re￾sources in their own countries remains to
be seen.
The international development com￾munity recognizes that many women’s
organizations will not survive. The level
of international funding and humanitar￾ian assistance has declined over time in
the case-study countries. Moreover, many
of the problems that plagued these societ￾ies—including women refugees, demobi￾lized women combatants, and separated
children—have been resolved, at least par￾tially, and are no longer acute. Conse￾quently, the need for certain types of pro￾grams related to these problems has
diminished, leading some women’s orga￾nizations to reduce their activities, find
different mandates, or close down. Even
so, as these countries make economic, so￾cial, and political progress, new women’s
organizations will arise that concentrate on
new problems and challenges. Those new
organizations will, of course, build on the
foundations laid by their elder sisters.
International
Assistance
To Women’s
Organizations
T
5
HE PREVIOUS CHAPTER discussed the
roles and activities of women’s orga￾nizations in postconflict societies. This
chapter examines the assistance provided
to these organizations by the international
community. Specifically, it examines the
nature of international assistance and its
contribution to the functioning of women’s
organizations and identifies problem
areas that deserve attention and action by
the international donor community.
Nature of International
Assistance
The international community pro￾vided extensive assistance to women’s
organizations in all case-study countries.
Precise data are not available, but it is safe
to assume that most, if not all, of the
money for these organizations came from
international sources. Funders included
bilateral and multilateral donor agencies,
private foundations, trade unions, inter￾national charitable organizations, religious
and church organizations, professional or￾ganizations, and other NGOs in case-study
countries.
International donors provided gen￾eral grants for institutional development
and for specific activities of women’s
organizations. Donors also contracted
with these organizations to carry out spe￾cific projects and programs. Often foun￾dations, religious organizations, NGOs, and
small bilateral agencies (particularly from
Scandinavian countries) gave grants for in￾stitutional development and activities.
Such grants were flexible and did not in￾volve any monitoring by the funding
agency. However, USAID and major bilat￾eral agencies preferred to tie assistance to
specific projects and activities. Women’s
organizations were held accountable for
the progress of these interventions.
The most common form of assistance
was financial. Both donors and women’s
organizations preferred the flexibility of
financial aid. International donors also
gave in-kind assistance. For example, dur￾ing conflict, USAID, the World Food Pro￾gram, and the UN High Commissioner for
Refugees provided food, medicines, and
other essential commodities to women’s
organizations to distribute among tar￾geted populations. Such programs usually
46 Women and Women’s Organizations in Postconflict Societies
ended when peace was established. Many
international organizations also donated
typewriters, computers, copiers, audio￾visual equipment, and even automobiles
to aid women’s organizations.
In addition, the international commu￾nity provided considerable technical
assistance. Such assistance was necessary
because the staffs of women’s organiza￾tions usually lacked managerial and tech￾nical expertise. The international commu￾nity routinely supported short- and
long-term training programs in account￾ing, management, and technical fields.
Donors also arranged overseas trips for
senior officials of women’s organizations
who visited technical and educational in￾stitutions or attended international meet￾ings and conferences. Some donors funded
short-term consultants and long-term
expatriate experts who helped solve spe￾cific managerial and technical problems.
The cost of expatriate experts is exception￾ally high, so international donors have
become more reluctant to provide them.
Contributions of
International Assistance
The experience of case-study coun￾tries shows unequivocally that interna￾tional assistance has contributed to the
growth, activities, and survival of
women’s organizations. Officials from the
international community, leaders of
women’s organizations, host government
officials, and academic experts all agree
on this general conclusion. They empha￾sized four vital contributions of interna￾tional assistance:
First, many women’s organizations in
all case-study countries would not have
emerged—or at least not survived—with￾out international assistance. International
organizations helped many women lead￾ers establish new groups or revive old
ones at the end of conflict. The presence
and funding of the international commu￾nity, combined with the return of women
with an international experience and per￾spective, acted as a catalyst for the forma￾tion of these organizations.
Second, international assistance en￾abled most women’s organizations to ini￾tiate projects and programs that benefited
women and contributed to their empow￾erment. In none of the case-study countries
could a majority of women’s organizations
raise necessary resources locally. Because
of desperate economic situations, only a
few local religious organizations, philan￾thropic groups, and political patrons
could provide more than token help. Some
women’s organizations did receive local
in-kind assistance, such as free office
space and the services of professional staff,
but those donations were hardly adequate
to carry out effective programs. Interna￾tional assistance was essential in pursu￾ing the ongoing activities of these organi￾zations. Almost all the projects undertaken
by women’s organizations in vocational
training, microenterprises, family plan￾ning, health services, social services, and
electoral assistance have depended en￾tirely on international assistance.
International Assistance to Women’s Organizations 47
Third, foreign assistance contributed
to legitimizing women’s organizations. In
many cases, international recognition also
protected women’s organizations from
interference from the various arms of the
government. For example, before the
peace process began, many women’s or￾ganizations fighting for the rights of vic￾tims of political oppression in El Salva￾dor and Guatemala survived through the
material and moral support of the inter￾national community.
And fourth, international assistance
contributed to the growth of managerial
and technical skills. Many women’s orga￾nizations in the case-study countries re￾ceived training or technical assistance from
the international community. In Bosnia and
Herzegovina and in Cambodia, donors
encouraged independent local organiza￾tions to assist women’s organizations and
other civil society organizations. In addi￾tion, to qualify for funding from interna￾tional donors, women’s organizations
often had to learn appropriate managerial
and budgetary procedures. Most women’s
organizations established during or after
conflict did not have even rudimentary
managerial structures. To get international
assistance, they had to establish manage￾ment procedures, keep necessary records,
and follow appropriate budgetary prac￾tices for their programs. The cumulative
effect was that, over time, their manage￾rial and technical capacities improved.
From their association with the inter￾national community, women’s organiza￾tions seem to have acquired three sets of
skills: a) expertise in preparing and sub￾mitting proposals to international agen￾cies, b) accounting and budgeting skills,
particularly in former communist coun￾tries where such skills were not common,
and c) management practices, such as work
plans, job descriptions, individual assign￾ments, management systems and controls,
and monitoring and evaluation systems.
International Assistance
And the Autonomy
Of Women’s Organizations
Because of their economic depen￾dence on international assistance, the ques￾tion of the autonomy of women’s organ￾izations requires some discussion. There
is a genuine concern among some donors
and women leaders that the current eco￾nomic dependence undermines the au￾tonomy of these organizations and may
prevent them from responding to the dis￾tinctive needs and aspirations of their tar￾geted populations. The reasoning is
simple. Given the organizations’ over￾whelming dependence on international
assistance, their agendas, projects, and ac￾tivities are likely to be determined not by
their own assessments of their needs or
organizational capabilities and strengths,
but by the priorities and concerns of the
international donor community. *
 Case
studies provide some support for this hy-
*This issue is generally discussed in the context of inter￾national assistance to civil society organizations. For re￾cent debate on this subject, see Carothers’s Aiding De￾mocracy Abroad and Hudock’s NGOs and Civil Society.
48 Women and Women’s Organizations in Postconflict Societies
pothesis. For example, after the Dayton
Accords, many women’s organizations in
Bosnia and Herzegovina closed their
psychosocial healing projects against their
own judgment, when international donors
shifted their attention to economic growth
and development. In the late 1990s in Cam￾bodia, women’s organizations found that
funds were available for projects against
domestic violence, so many began ventur￾ing into this field. Lacking alternative
sources of funding, many considered it a
prudent choice.
While there is substance in this rea￾soning, the relationship between funding
and autonomy is more complex. Inter￾views with informants suggest wide varia￾tion among countries, organizations, and
over time. For example, during the early
stages of conflict in Bosnia and Herze￾govina, when women’s organizations
were fewer and international assistance
plentiful, women’s groups enjoyed con￾siderable autonomy in determining their
activities. The international community
supported their programs without any res￾ervation. But conditions changed as the
volume of international assistance de￾clined and the number of women’s orga￾nizations grew. International agencies
were in a position to influence the priori￾ties and programs of organizations receiv￾ing assistance from them. The same phe￾nomenon occurred in Cambodia. But in El
Salvador, many established women’s org￾anizations could pursue their own priori￾ties and received donors’ funds to support
those priorities.
Some critics have argued that the
practice of subcontracting with women’s
organizations leaves them little choice but
to become an extension of the interna￾tional community. *
 The important point to
emphasize is that even when they con￾tracted projects for international donors,
women’s organizations enjoyed consider￾able freedom and flexibility in shaping
these programs. In most cases, interna￾tional donors identified priorities, and
organizations developed their own pro￾grams and plans. There was much give￾and-take between international donors
and women’s organizations during nego￾tiations because each side needed the
other. Although international donors had
the financial leverage, women’s organiza￾tions had bargaining power because of
their local roots and capacity to deliver
goods and services to the targeted women.
“Our main objective is to help suffering
women. It is immaterial from what
source we get resources. Let
academicians debate the issue.”
—A woman leader from Cambodia
“What autonomy? Most of the
women’s organizations are the
extension arm of international donors.”
—A scholar from El Salvador
*For examples, see Hudoc, NGOs and Civil Society, and
Morton, “Women’s Organizations and Empowerment.”
International Assistance to Women’s Organizations 49
Finally and emphatically, many inter￾national donors (particularly those from
Scandinavian countries) and private foun￾dations continue to give grants to
women’s organizations to develop and
put into effect their own programs reflect￾ing their priorities and understanding of
local conditions. Major donor agencies
such as USAID are also helping postconflict
societies develop an institutional infra￾structure for the civil society that will in￾directly help women’s organizations in
strengthening their institutional capacities
and tapping local resources for their pro￾grams.
Important Issues
In International Assistance
International assistance suffered from
six significant problems in the case-study
countries.
The first, as mentioned in chapter 4,
was the inability of international donors
to make long-term commitments. The
maximum donor commitment was for five
years. But in most cases the grant was re￾newed every year. Because of shrinking
levels of assistance to postconflict societ￾ies, renewals were not necessarily auto￾matic. Thus, many organizations carried
out activities in an environment of uncer￾tainty and were unable to engage in long￾term planning.
A second problem was the cumber￾some requirements for proposals, pro￾gress reports, and monitoring information
imposed by international donor agencies.
These had high opportunity costs for
women’s organizations. USAID provides a
good example. USAID in the recent past
required voluntary organizations apply￾ing for Agency grants to register with
USAID/Washington or meet the same
requirements established for U.S.–based
private voluntary organizations, or PVOs.
(This requirement was dropped in 2000.)
Thus only a small number of women’s or￾ganizations could obtain direct grants
from USAID or its missions. Instead, funds
were channeled to them through U.S. or
international PVOs.*
 Moreover, USAID and
its development partners often required
detailed progress reports and, in some
cases, information on the effects of the
funded programs. Most smaller women’s
organizations had to spend considerable
resources and time in meeting such
requirements.
A third problem, related to the sec￾ond, was that large, well-established
women’s organizations—usually led by
well-connected women leaders—received
the lion’s share of international assistance.
This was particularly true when interna￾tional assistance began to decline and the
competition for funds became intense.
International donor agencies were aware
*USAID has generally preferred to channel assistance
through PVOs for other reasons as well. Direct assistance
to local organizations is management intensive, and
USAID’S overseas missions lack manpower to manage it.
Because of their long involvement with grass-roots
organizations, PVOs are in a better position to deal with
women’s organizations.
50 Women and Women’s Organizations in Postconflict Societies
of the problem, but they could do little
about it. Because their staffs were account￾able for results, they did not want to take
risks with small, relatively unknown or￾ganizations. It made more sense to go with
established ones. Moreover, reaching out
to small organizations at the grass-roots
level was difficult and involved more
management time and resources. Some
international donors tried to solve this
problem by channeling resources through
international PVOs or by establishing
local voluntary organizations to assist
small women’s organizations.
Fourth, there has been little or no do￾nor coordination. Donor agencies tended
to work independently without adequate
information and understanding of one
another’s programs. During the early post￾conflict phase, there was even competition
among donors to fund suitable projects
developed by women’s organizations in
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, and
Rwanda. Similar projects were funded by
two or more agencies for the same com￾munity or region, resulting in a waste of
precious resources. Even when one donor
was not satisfied with the progress of a
program and discontinued funding, oth￾ers picked it up, resulting in the continua￾tion of ineffective programs. The situation
improved over time in almost all case￾study countries. The decline in levels of
international funding and corresponding
reductions in the number of international
actors operating in the country facilitated
increased contacts, if not coordination,
among the donors.
Fifth, international donors were un￾able to disseminate information about
resource availability to all interested
women’s organizations. Time constraints,
limited information about women’s
organizations, and language and geo￾graphical barriers contributed to this prob￾lem. Organizations located in capital cit￾ies or those whose leaders were politically
connected clearly enjoyed an advantage
over smaller organizations based farther
from metropolitan areas.*
Finally, international assistance to
women’s organizations also suffered be￾cause the international community has yet
to develop a coherent policy framework
for assisting women and promoting gen￾der equality in postconflict societies. Al￾though the community has undertaken a
wide range of programs, these have been
established in an opportunistic manner
without a carefully formulated policy
framework.
*Alice Morton, a consultant for Development Alterna￾tives Inc., has made this point and suggested that the
donor community should be sensitive about the prob￾lem.
Lessons and
Recommendations
For USAID and
The International
Community
ARLIER CHAPTERS examined the social,
economic, and political effects of
intrastate conflict on women and gender
relations. They discussed the growth,
activities, and contributions of women’s
organizations that emerged or reemerged
in the aftermath of war. They also exam￾ined the nature and forms of assistance pro￾vided by the international community to
meet some of the challenges arising out of
conflict. This chapter explores the policy
implications of the findings presented in
earlier chapters. The first two sections
present lessons and recommendations,
and the third outlines a strategic frame￾work for international assistance for gen￾der and women’s issues in postconflict
societies.
Lessons and
Recommendations for
USAID to Support Women
And Gender Relations
1. Build on women’s economic and politi￾cal gains. Not all effects of intrastate con￾flicts on women and gender relations have
E
6
been negative. In fact, in all case-study
countries conflict undermined the tradi￾tional sexual division of labor, creating
new economic and political opportunities
for women. In most countries women were
able to enter occupations that had been
closed to them previously. Women’s po￾litical participation in community and lo￾cal affairs increased. In many cases they
assumed the leadership of grass-roots
civic and political institutions.
Because the postconflict era provides
an opening to build on the progress made
by women during conflict, it makes sense
for USAID to capitalize on this opportunity
by designing and implementing programs
to ameliorate the negative conditions
women endure and to help promote gen￾der equality.
2. Pay greater attention to civilian secu￾rity. The decline of social control, the dis￾integration of community, the presence of
demilitarized soldiers, and the ineffective￾ness of law enforcement agencies all tend
to increase lawlessness and violence in
postconflict societies. Poverty and unem￾ployment are exacerbating factors. Though
52 Women and Women’s Organizations in Postconflict Societies
all strata of society suffer, women and chil￾dren are the most frequent victims. The
international community has generally
supported demobilization of ex-combat￾ants, police reforms, and international
monitoring of human rights to reform the
security sector. But the primary target of
its efforts has been political rights rather
than civilian security. Consequently, while
the human rights situation had improved
in all case-study countries, civilian secu￾rity remained a major problem.
USAID can assume a leadership role
in highlighting the problem of civilian se￾curity and the need for concerted action.
The Agency can also encourage other or￾gans of the U.S. government, bilateral and
multilateral agencies, and international
NGOs to devise and carry out programs
that can enhance physical security for
women. Such programs could include se￾curity sector reforms, greater representa￾tion of women in police forces and judi￾cial processes, training of security staff on
women’s rights, establishment of peace
committees to prevent the eruption of vio￾lence, and special interventions for vulner￾able youth.
3. Emphasize cost-effective, indigenous
approaches to treat traumatized women and
men. International programs for dealing
with traumatized women have suffered
from many limitations. The programs tend
to ignore the cultural and social contexts
of trauma and propose solutions that may
not be relevant to victims. Programs are
often short-lived and spotty because of
inadequate funding and their experimen￾tal nature. Finally, because they concen￾trate on women and children, and not on
men, these programs are ineffective in re￾ducing domestic violence. Women often
become the victims of aggression by trau￾matized men.
USAID has supported cost-effective,
inventive programs that use indigenous
approaches to psychosocial healing to
deal with traumatized children and child
soldiers. It would be useful for the Agency
to examine its experience and explore the
possibility of expanding these programs
to include, on an experimental basis, both
men and women.
4. Step up efforts to prevent sexual abuse
of women. The international community
has implemented many programs for help￾ing sexually abused women in postconflict
societies. Because of the nature of sexual
crimes and the social stigma attached to
them, these programs do not reach most
victims. Nonetheless, they are important
and should be supported. But USAID’s
most important role for this subject is to
support initiatives to educate people
about these crimes and to prevent their
recurrence.
International organizations and ex￾perts have put forward several proposals
for consideration by the international com￾munity: protect witnesses; train interna￾tional peacekeepers in gender issues; pro￾mote more women to international judicial
posts; raise the awareness of and punish￾ment for international trafficking in
women; and treat sexual violence within
Lessons and Recommendations for USAID and the International Community 53
the definition of torture under the UN 1994
Convention Against Torture and Other
Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment
or Punishment. USAID should carefully
review these proposals and, when appro￾priate, endorse them.
5. Promote microcredit. The experience
in many case-study countries indicates that
microcredit programs have been quite ef￾fective. Though not exclusively targeted
to women, the overwhelming majority of
loans went to women. These programs ap￾peared to achieve the dual objectives of
relief and economic development. How￾ever, such programs are no cure for all eco￾nomic problems facing women in post￾conflict societies. They do not address
structural barriers to women’s economic
advancement. Although microcredit pro￾grams can prevent abject poverty, they do
not promise sustained economic advance￾ment.
While supporting microcredit pro￾grams, USAID should not ignore their limi￾tations. The Agency should advocate the
removal of structural barriers to the eco￾nomic advancement of women.
6. Support implementation of property
rights reforms for women. Women’s lack of
access to agricultural land and other pro￾ductive assets is a major problem in post￾conflict societies. Women are usually
denied legal rights to land and other
resources owned by their dead husbands,
fathers, or other close relatives. Conse￾quently, widows and single women are
unable to engage in many productive
activities. Thus they often suffer depriva￾tion and abject poverty.
USAID has been a pioneer in pushing
for property rights for women in post￾conflict societies and should continue
these efforts. The Agency should press not
only for constitutional and legislative re￾forms, but also for their effective imple￾mentation. USAID should support initia￾tives designed to build public support for
women’s property rights and to support
actions to help resolve bureaucratic iner￾tia and resistance.
7. Promote greater women’s participation
in postconflict elections. With the exception
of Rwanda, all case-study countries held
postconflict elections at the national level.*
Their main purposes were to form gov￾ernments that enjoyed national and inter￾national legitimacy and to promote the
rehabilitation and reconstruction of the
society. USAID and other donors provided
assistance in conducting postconflict elec￾tions. Although women constituted half or
more of the electorate, only a small pro￾portion were elected to national legisla￾tures.
USAID should promote greater repre￾sentation of women in postconflict elec￾tions by encouraging political parties to
field women candidates and assisting
women candidates on a nonpartisan
basis.
*Rwanda did hold local elections.
54 Women and Women’s Organizations in Postconflict Societies
8. Promote political participation of
women. Postconflict societies offered open￾ings for women’s political participation.
Often democratic constitutions were
adopted that provided for equality be￾tween men and women. Such constitutions
also provided a legal framework for
women’s participation in the political
arena. During conflict some women not
only acquired leadership skills and expe￾rience but also became aware of their po￾litical rights and responsibilities. The in￾ternational community has provided
assistance to encourage women to partici￾pate in political affairs. Despite all these
developments, women’s political partici￾pation has been limited.
USAID should support women’s po￾litical participation with increased vigor.
The Agency should consider providing
long-term technical and material assis￾tance to nonpartisan women’s advocacy
organizations that engage in promoting
women’s participation in local and na￾tional affairs.
Lessons and
Recommendations
For Strengthening
Women’s Organizations
1. Continue to foster women’s organiza￾tions. USAID and other international agen￾cies have supported the establishment and
growth of women’s organizations in post￾conflict societies for several reasons.
Women’s organizations represent an es￾sential element of civil society and there￾fore are critical to consolidating nascent
democracies. Further, they promote
women’s leadership, contributing to gen￾der equality. Finally, women’s organiza￾tions are instrumental in channeling hu￾manitarian and development assistance to
targeted populations, particularly women.
The findings of this assessment show that
the expectations of USAID and other do￾nors were fully justified. Despite obvious
limitations, women’s organizations have
made contributions toward the achieve￾ment of all these objectives. Moreover, the
findings demonstrate that the international
community can foster women’s organiza￾tions in postconflict conditions.
USAID should continue with greater
vigor its policy of fostering women’s or￾ganizations as an integral part of efforts to
rehabilitate and reconstruct postconflict
societies. The Agency also should encour￾age its development partners to support
women’s organizations.
2. Review funding requirements for
women’s organizations. Women’s organiza￾tions encountered many problems obtain￾ing funds from USAID. First, the Agency’s
requirements to qualify for contracts were
stringent. Although relaxed in early 2000,
the requirements remain formidable to
most women’s organizations. Second,
many organizations viewed reporting
requirements for projects and program
activities as onerous. Organizations were
often required to provide information on
the impact of projects, which was not eas￾ily available and required considerable
time and resources to collect. Finally, USAID
Lessons and Recommendations for USAID and the International Community 55
funded women’s organizations through
international PVOs, which imposed their
own requirements. Thus, some organiza￾tions had to meet dual reporting require￾ments—those of USAID and of its imple￾menting partner.
USAID and its partners should exam￾ine these problem areas and take steps to
redress them. Wherever possible, it is ad￾visable to impose minimal requirements
and provide some funds to cover the costs
of essential data collection and analysis.
3. Consider multiyear funding. A major
problem women’s organizations faced in
all case-study countries was the short du￾ration of funding. Most projects funded
under humanitarian assistance spanned
only six to nine months. The life span of
other projects was longer but was subject
to annual reviews. Women’s organizations
were forced to spend considerable time
and resources on proposal writing. Even
after a project was funded, a cloud of un￾certainty hung over it because funds for
the subsequent years were not ensured.
USAID and other donors should con￾sider a longer funding duration for
projects implemented by women’s orga￾nizations. The assurance of long-term as￾sistance would help build institutional
capacity and boost staff morale.
4. Promote sustainability of women’s or￾ganizations. International donors and
women’s organizations generally agreed
that most women’s organizations cannot
survive without international assistance.
Most postconflict societies faced severe
shortages of economic resources. They
lacked a well-developed private sector that
could fund such organizations. Moreover,
women’s organizations themselves have
limited technical and managerial capacity
to diversify funding sources.
To promote the sustainability of at
least some women’s organizations that
have done noteworthy work in areas
where needs continue, USAID could a) pro￾vide technical assistance, when necessary,
to improve management, b) consider
funding a portion of core costs, in addi￾tion to program costs, for a limited time,
and c) help the organizations become self￾reliant by improving skills in advocacy,
fund-raising, coalition building, strength￾ening local political networks, and net￾working with governmental and nongov￾ernmental organizations. In addition,
USAID should consider facilitating train￾ing and assistance to help women’s orga￾nizations create viable businesses that sup￾port their core activities over the long term.
5. Integrate women’s organizations in
large-scale development initiatives. The inter￾national community has tended to treat
women’s organizations—because of their
gender emphasis and small size—as
peripheral rather than mainstream. The
development community generally
entrusts them with initiatives that target
women exclusively. It is important to
move beyond this tendency for two rea￾sons. First, a gender framework should
inform all development projects—not
merely those that help women. Second,
56 Women and Women’s Organizations in Postconflict Societies
integration of women’s organizations
into large development initiatives can
strengthen the organizations’ institutional
capabilities.
USAID and other donors should ex￾plore the possibility of integrating
women’s organizations into large-scale
development initiatives in postconflict
societies. Such integration could entail
awarding them contracts for development
initiatives and encouraging large devel￾opment organizations to include women’s
organizations as partners in bidding for
contracts for international projects.
Strategic Framework
For International Assistance
Although USAID and other donors
have successfully designed and imple￾mented a host of interventions to help
women and promote gender equality, no
strategic framework exists to inform these
assistance programs. A strategic frame￾work not only can provide an overall
rationale for policy and program coher￾ence, but also can promote meaningful
donor coordination.
It should be recognized at the outset
that the purpose of international assistance
is not merely to mitigate the harmful ef￾fects of conflict, but also to transform gen￾der relations by seizing opportunities for
women’s advancement. Therefore, any
framework should be designed to achieve
two objectives: 1) address the urgent and
immediate problems that women face in
the aftermath of conflict and 2) contribute
to women’s social, economic, and politi￾cal empowerment, thereby promoting
more balanced gender relations. Although
related, these are distinct objectives.
On the basis of the preceding discus￾sion, the outline of a strategic framework
is proposed here. The proposed frame￾work has three elements: enhancing physi￾cal security, increasing access to resources,
and promoting political empowerment
(see figure 6.1).*
Enhancing Physical Security
Physical security includes protection
from violence and protection from hunger,
both critical to women’s welfare.
Although both men and women are
susceptible to lingering violence from a
conflict, women are more vulnerable. They
often are easy targets for those seeking
revenge, particularly in ethnic conflicts.
Women are more often the victims of
sexual abuse and exploitation both dur￾ing and after the conflict. Moreover, do￾mestic violence often increases in the
aftermath of conflicts. The international
community has thus far limited its
involvement in protecting women from
violence. It should do more in the future.
Hunger is a primary form of insecu￾rity for women. Women are particularly
susceptible to food insecurity in postcon-
*This framework is in many ways similar to that pro￾posed by the World Bank in its World Development Report
2000/2001: Attacking Poverty.
Lessons and Recommendations for USAID and the International Community 57
flict societies because of abject poverty,
increased economic pressures as single
heads of households, and the addition of
separated children to families. The inter￾national community has undertaken a host
of programs to prevent hunger and star￾vation both during and after conflicts.
These include the bulk distribution of
food, food-for-work programs to generate
employment, nutritional support pro￾grams for children, and the provision of
seed and tools for agriculture. The inter￾national community has also developed
mechanisms to ensure that women get
their reasonable share of such assistance.
Increasing Access
To Productive Assets
Productive assets include not only
physical assets but also technical skills and
knowledge. Even in peaceful times,
women do not receive equal access to pro￾ductive assets. The situation tends to
worsen in postconflict periods because of
the destruction of physical and institu￾tional infrastructure, economic recession,
and general social disorganization. It is
therefore essential that concerted efforts be
made early during postconflict transition
to give women increased access to and
control of productive assets. Without such
efforts, women can neither become produc￾tive members of their societies nor im￾prove their social and economic status.
Any economic gains they made during the
conflict might even be undermined.
The international community has un￾dertaken many programs to increase
women’s access to productive assets. First,
in rural areas, the community provides
Figure 6.1. Strategic Framework for International Assistance
enhance physical security
promote political empowerment
increase access to resources
58 Women and Women’s Organizations in Postconflict Societies
seeds, pesticides, agricultural tools, and
livestock so farmers can start or resume
agricultural production. Experience has
shown that women farmers often are
underrepresented in such assistance. Sec￾ond, international donors fund microenter￾prise programs. The major beneficiaries of
such credit programs have been women.
Third, the international community sup￾ports training and educational programs.
Depending on the level of the country’s
development, such programs may range
from literacy training to training in com￾puter and business skills. Fourth, interna￾tional donors also assist postconflict soci￾eties in restoring communal assets and
improving people’s access to them. Ex￾amples of this sort of assistance are
projects to remove mines, clean the envi￾ronment, and repair and construct roads.
Finally, international donors have sup￾ported legal reforms to enable women to
inherit and own productive assets. All
these efforts are valuable, but they should
be pursued with greater vigor.
Promoting Political Empowerment
The last element of the strategic frame￾work is political empowerment. The gains
to be made by increasing women’s access
to and control of productive resources can￾not be consolidated without women shar￾ing political power. Nor can traditional
structures of discrimination and subjuga￾tion be eradicated without women’s
political leadership. The international
development community has often under￾estimated the importance of political par￾ticipation and power sharing by women
in postconflict societies. Thus, political
empowerment of women should be an es￾sential element of a strategic framework
for international assistance.
The international community has
already supported many activities that
directly or indirectly increase women’s
participation in public affairs. For one, in￾ternational donors have fostered the for￾mation of women’s organizations that not
only provide an array of services to tar￾geted women but also nurture self-confi￾dence and activism. These programs can
and often do prepare women to assume
leadership roles in the polity. For another,
many international NGOs and donor agen￾cies have provided assistance to women’s
groups working for increased political par￾ticipation. Such groups articulate agendas,
provide support to women candidates,
and sometimes work with legislative bod￾ies to fight discrimination.
This strategic framework is, at best,
tentative and is designed to promote fur￾ther dialog on the subject. Nevertheless,
its three elements are essential to advanc￾ing women’s progress after major societal
upheaval. Any framework incorporating
these elements will help policymakers
and program managers design and inte￾grate coherent interventions that address
women’s most urgent problems and help
establish gender equality and women’s
empowerment.
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