According to the International Rescue Committee, there are
currently 35 million people displaced in 24 countries. Millions
have had to flee their homes and jobs due to disasters such as
drought or coastal flooding. Hundreds of thousands of others have
seen their homes bulldozed to make way for dams, airports, highways
and other development projects, with little compensation. And the
most urgent tasks of rebuilding daily life in a devastated region -
such as feeding a family, doing the laundry, shopping for basic
necessities and generating income - usually fall to women.
Poverty and severely limited means of generating income force
many internally displaced women into abusive trades such as
prostitution and trafficking. In IDP (internally displaced people)
camps in Uganda, for example, many girls and women engage in
"survival sex" to obtain food or "transactional sex" in exchange
for spending money or small objects. These women are given no
opportunities to further their education, engage in businesses or
develop self-respect.
Effective aid, training and finance make a
difference
"We hear much discussion about the front lines of war," says
Rania Atalla, executive director for the United States of the
Washington DC-based Women for Women International (WWI). "We need
to focus more attention on the back-line delivery of peace." WWI
works to help women recover from the ravages of war and become
active citizens by offering them direct aid, job training and
microcredit loans. Ms Atalla, a former communications director for
King Abdullah in Jordan, says women are the cornerstones of new
economies.
"Even during conflict, women hold the pieces together and avoid
having their families and communities fall apart," she says. "Their
resilience allows them to feed their children and send them to
school. [It allows them] to venture out of their homes to ensure
their family's survival. These very same skills are highly
effective when applied in the effort to rebuild economies in
post-conflict countries. "The violence and hardship of conflict
present the necessity and opportunity for women to become active
citizens and step out of their perceived 'traditional' roles. We
have seen this in Rwanda where genocide left the country with fewer
men than women, and where approximately half of parliamentarians
are female. Women can be critical players in rebuilding economies
after conflict because they tend to invest their returns into their
communities and seek stability," Atalla says.
New skills kick-start local economies
Since 1993, WWI has supported women survivors of war in
Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia, the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Kosovo, Nigeria, Rwanda and Sudan. It
has assisted more than 120,000 women, distributed more than $33
million in direct aid and microcredit loans, and helped thousands
more to start their own small businesses.
In Tanzania and Burundi, 13 WWI training centres teach women
basic business and marketing skills, while those who need it are
taught literacy. "Once a woman learns to read and write in our
programme, she can run her own business, and her literacy skills
will be passed on to her children," Atalla says. "We provide
skills-training in areas ranging from tie-dye to commercial
farming, based on detailed market research done in the countries in
which we work. One of our aims is to link the income-generating
activities of the women to local markets, helping them produce and
market their goods. One example is the commercial integrated
farming initiative we just started in Rwanda and Sudan. It is very
innovative, in that it addresses both income and food security, and
has a strong marketing component. Women are not only growing food
for their families, but they are also providing produce for local
wholesale buyers, including restaurants and hotels.
"We believe that programmes like this will have a positive
effect on local and regional trading. Women are at the forefront.
In the Great Lakes region you can witness this every day. Women
from eastern Congo cross the border into Rwanda to buy and sell
goods in the market despite the tense relationship between both
countries. We believe that support to these kinds of cross-border
economic activities will ultimately make a contribution toward the
well-being and peaceful co-existence of entire communities and
societies," says Atalla.
In a recent academic study involving 41 countries, women
accounted for 36% of all entrepreneurs. The percentage of female
entrepreneurs ranges from 2% in Japan to 18% in Thailand. It's an
exciting trend that many are trying to harness.
Establishing enterprise, helping recovery
Ugandan-American Amber Chand is doing her bit to put
war-affected women back to work and start their own businesses. She
runs the United States-based Amber Chand Collection
(www.amberchand.com), an online gift shop that sells handcrafts
produced and sourced from some of the most war-ravaged regions of
the world.
She is currently working closely with women in a large refugee
camp in war-torn Darfur, in south-western Sudan. The women are
producing hand-woven baskets for export. Many of them work while
recovering from militia attacks. "I'm most proud of the Darfur
project because it is all happening inside a refugee camp," says Ms
Chand. The women have already produced over 600 baskets.
The Darfur Peace and Development Organization launched a women's
rape centre tent. This centre supports women who have been raped
and need counselling and education. I suggested that while these
women are recovering from their trauma, they create baskets. This
is a very powerful way for the women to recover… to take some
control back and earn some money. Fifty women are now creating
baskets for our gift collection," she says.
Ms Chand says the inspiration for her work traces back to 1972
when her family was forced to leave Uganda by dictator Idi Amin. "I
personally felt so wounded by the horror of the experience that
when, years later in 1989, I had a chance to use my business skills
to help, I wanted to focus on women in conflict areas," she says.
"These crafts become powerful symbols of the culture. We're working
in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Colombia, Ethiopia, Guatemala, India,
Iraq, Jordan, Myanmar, Rwanda, Sudan and Viet Nam."
A message of hope
The Amber Chand Collection was launched three years ago.
Israeli/Palestinian candles, its signature product, are made
jointly by women surviving on opposite sides of the long-running
Middle East conflict. "I tend to work in regions of conflict that
are insecure and fragile as well as countries that are a little
more stable post-conflict," she says.
"I want to look at how to stimulate micro-enterprise in these
regions."
Ms Chand collaborates with not-for-profit organizations and
non-governmental organizations (NGOs), so she has a good network of
well-connected specialists on the ground in each region. They
receive a small 5% administrative fee for their work, while 20-25%
of total revenue of the company goes back to the artisan.
"We're dealing with complex logistics and fragile economies but
it is not as difficult as many business people would imagine.
I want to support the women to unleash their entrepreneurial
instincts and help them develop a mechanism so they can do business
simply. Rather than looking at the aid model or the charity model,
we look at the business model," she says.
Ms Chand would like to see businesses step into the arena and
act in a compassionate and humanitarian way that is still fiscally
responsible. "We need to invest in the area," she says. "At the
moment we're feeling an extraordinary sense of collapse - people
are questioning who we are, what we do. We're questioning greed and
excess and the short-term goals. It's all imploding. We need to
create trusting relationships, value-based relationships.
"NGOs are sometimes reluctant about getting too involved with
the business of doing business. I would love it if the NGO could
say, 'Wow! You've got a deadline. We'll jump to it or move
quickly.' I'd like them to acknowledge that I have deadlines and
that I have products to move. I'd like to see them responding and
respecting those pressures.
"In terms of governments, I would like to see fewer tariffs and
taxations placed on the artisans. None of the people I'm working
with has had prohibitive taxes placed on them, but they do exist,"
says Ms Chand. "I'd like to see governments become more
pro-entrepreneurial and encourage business activities. Governments
need to build partnerships and enterprises, raise awareness and do
more educating.
"We need to create models that support all stakeholders for the
common good. It should involve profit-sharing so that the artisans
benefit and are not exploited."
Inspiring projects like these demonstrate the possibilities for
trade to build better lives and stronger communities. With
extraordinary determination and resilience, these women are
fighting against the toughest challenges of conflict, to craft
opportunity, self-respect and a sustainable model for future
enterprise in developing countries.
Useful resources
Women for Women
International
Amber Chand Collection