“We include women in all cash transfer activities, but this is not ‘gender work’. We all know that women give anything they receive to their male guardians.” So said one of the managers of a prominent humanitarian organisation in Yemen when discussing the role of women in aid distribution

Motahar, Ghaidaa

LSE Research Online

11/28/2016Gender should play a bigger role in humanitarian aid inYemenblogs.lse.ac.uk /mec/2016/11/28/gender-should-play-a-bigger-role-in-humanitarian-aid-in-yemen/by Ghaidaa Motahar© World Bank Photo Collection, 2007“We include women in all cash transfer activities, but this is not ‘gender work’. We all know that women giveanything they receive to their male guardians.” So said one of the managers of a prominent humanitarianorganisation in Yemen when discussing the role of women in aid distribution.During emergency relief efforts, when the entire focus of national and international humanitarian organisations is onmeeting people’s most basic needs – such as food, water and medicine, gender is not considered in terms ofequality or justice, but only as a dimension of vulnerability. In such situations, women tend to be designated a morevulnerable group than men.There is however a danger in only portraying women as helpless victims during emergency situations. Continuouslytreating them as passive recipients of aid over a long period of time will increase their dependency – and hence theirvulnerability. Moreover, thinking of them in terms of vulnerability alone ignores their resilience and resourcefulness.Women in Yemen have strong social networks, possess detailed local community knowledge, produce food andcrafts for income generation, and in some areas are even becoming solar energy technicians. They also frequentlyaccess the ‘men’s realm’: approaching sheikhs and community leaders for support, borrowing money, or going toarmed groups demanding justice or the release of their loved ones.Following the ‘Emergency Relief’ phase of humanitarian response  is ‘Early Recovery’. During this phase, it becomescrucial to understand gender relations and power dynamics within the local community, as well as to explore thecauses of vulnerability and gender inequality, in order to design longer term programmes for social cohesion.While it is clearly important to continue delivering aid to women in need, it is crucial to treat them as partners – not1/2just victims – and to consider their agency and capacity for action. Women should be a part of humanitarianresponse in terms of what they can contribute, as well as in terms of vulnerability. Giving some focus to gendermainstreaming during emergencies is not as irrelevant as many people would think. Gender justice prepares theway for moving from immediate emergency relief to long-term development, and provides us with the toolsto improve humanitarian assistance.Ghaidaa Motahar is a gender specialist, with a master’s degree in Political Science from Warsaw University. Sheis the Founder of Safe Streets Foundation for Development, a Yemen-based NGO focussed on gender anddevelopment. She tweets at @GhaidaaMotahar.Copyright © 2014 London School of Economics and Political Science2/2

Gender should play a bigger role in humanitarian aid in Yemen

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

LSE Research Online