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By Mariam Yinusa and Edward Mabaya, Principal Economist and Manager, respectively, in the Agribusiness Development Division of the African Development Bank.



Monica Musonda, CEO of Zambian food processing company <a href="https://java-foods.com/">Java Foods</a>, certainly faced hurdles in her rise
to the top, but she overcame them. 



“Although the barriers to entry for
women can be frustrating, they are often basic and relatively easy to resolve,”
she said, playing down her struggles. “My
climb up the agribusiness ladder has been challenging but definitely
worthwhile.” 



Musonda, whose company produces
affordable and nutritious food snacks made from local ingredients, is one of just
a handful of female agripreneurs who have <a href="http://www.lionessesofafrica.com/blog/2017/5/14/monica-musonda-founder-of-java-foods-zambia-wins-the-african-agribusiness-entrepreneur-of-the-year-award-2017">successfully broken through the
proverbial glass ceiling in Africa’s agribusiness</a> industry. 



Women are
the backbone of Africa’s agricultural sector. From farm to fork, African women
are players along the entire agricultural value chain, be it as farmers,
livestock breeders, processors, traders, workers, entrepreneurs or consumers. While
their influence on the continent’s growing agribusiness industry is undeniable,
more solutions are needed to address the gender-specific challenges they face to
boost their participation. 



The average
African woman is a budding entrepreneur either by choice or by circumstance.
According to the &nbsp;<a href="https://www.gemconsortium.org/report/gem-20162017-womens-entrepreneurship-report">Global
Entrepreneurship Monitor Women’s Report 2016/17</a>,
the continent has the highest percentage of female entrepreneurs in the world,
with one in four women starting or managing a business. The agribusiness
industry is often the natural focus of this entrepreneurial drive. 



Across the
continent, women dominate as primary processors post-harvest, as traders with
bustling market stalls, as owners of fast food restaurants and with
increasingly frequency as manufacturers of packaged ready-to-eat food products.
Yet despite this dynamism, female-led agribusinesses tend to remain small,
fragmented and informal in nature. They struggle to sustain and scale-up their
agribusinesses into well-organized profitable enterprises.



Admittedly,
the challenging business environment in many African countries including poor
infrastructure and unreliable legal and regulatory systems affects all business
activities of both men and women. However, in addition women-led businesses must
also grapple with a number of gender-specific constraints, inhibiting their
expansion into more lucrative market segments.



Firstly, African women often lack the
technical know-how. &nbsp;Despite the gains in
female education on the continent, highly productive agribusinesses require
specialized vocational and technical skills in fields such as food safety, food
conservation, packaging and product certification which many African women do
not readily possess.



Access to
finance is the most frequently cited obstacle by African SMEs. Women
entrepreneurs face multiple difficulties in securing funding mainly due to lack
of collateral in the form of land and other tangible assets and a high-risk
perception. According to the African Development Bank, an estimated $42 billion
financing gap exists for African women across business value chains, including
$15.6 billion in agriculture alone. Women are forced to rely on personal
savings and family loans which are rarely enough to fund their businesses to
scale.



Thirdly, socio-cultural barriers and
stereotypes persist. African women remain the primary caregivers in families
meaning that managing those responsibilities while growing a thriving business
can become a difficult balancing act.



Over the last two decades, many
governments and development institutions have rolled out programs to promote
access to finance, agricultural inputs and provide technical support and
business training to female agripreneurs. The African Development Bank recently
set up the <a href="https://www.afdb.org/en/topics-and-sectors/initiatives-partnerships/afawa-affirmative-finance-action-for-women-in-africa">Affirmative Finance Action for Women
in Africa (AFAWA)</a>, a bold pan-African initiative to bridge the financing gap
facing women. It adopts a three-pronged approach centered on improving access
to finance, providing technical assistance and strengthening the enabling
environment.



It often
takes very little to make a difference. The capital injection required by the
majority of female led SME agribusinesses on the continent is typically less
than $50,000. And women have consistently proven to be more credit-worthy than
men, usually paying back loans within agreed timeframes. Successful solutions
by women for women such as microfinance and saving groups, peer-to-peer
training and information sharing should also be reinforced and taken to scale.



More of such initiatives are urgently
needed across the continent. Solutions must be based on in-depth engagement
with the women business owners themselves to properly understand their
frustrations and needs. Tailored programs designed to specifically address
these pain points are critical. The <a href="https://www.afdb.org/en/news-and-events/events/global-gender-summit-global-gender-summit">Global Gender Summit</a> is a timely opportunity to
drive this forward.



Women are central for Africa’s agricultural transformation to be successful, sustainable and inclusive. More African female agripreneurs must be supported to grow and progressively transition into the business segments of agricultural value chains which are most profitable. It has been proven time and time again that when African women thrive the entire society shares in those dividends.

Java Foods

Op-Ed: Getting women in the driver’s seat of Africa’s agribusiness revolution

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By Olga Arara-Kimani, Regional Head of Corporate Affairs, Brand &amp; Marketing for Standard Chartered in Africa and the Middle East



In recent years there has been significant improvements
towards empowering women in Africa and the Middle East (AME). Despite these
steps towards inclusion, according to the World Economic Forum’s 2018 Global
Gender Gap index<a href="#_ftn1">[1]</a>,
it will take more than 150 years to close the gender gap between men and women
in Africa and the Middle East. The effect of gender divide means women often
face barriers and end up in insecure, low-wage jobs, and constitute a small
minority of those in senior positions.



The divide hasn’t gone unnoticed. Regional
governments are increasingly moving ahead with progressive policies and
legislation, whilst Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) have been instrumental
in providing women with new skills and spurring attitudinal change. A solid
foundation has been laid for women to maximise their potential, however
government legislation and NGOs will not suffice if we are to truly level the
playing field. For this to occur, the private sector must be engaged as a key
partner to deliver on female equity. 



To begin with the public sector, governments across the region have moved to increase female participation in the workplace in recent years.  In the UAE, the government recently passed a resolution to increase women&#8217;s representation in the Federal National Council (FNC) to 50 percent<a href="#_ftn2">[2]</a>, whilst South Africa President, Cyril Ramaphosa has just announced that government plans and budgets will have to include gender-specific delivery targets.  Governments across the region have also been instrumental in introducing legislation to encourage women both in, and into, the workplace. For instance, Lebanon has increased paid maternity leave from 49 to 70 days. Progressive policies are not only helping women enter and stay in the workforce, but in the long-term will have a positive impact on the region’s GDP. In the GCC alone, some estimates tout a 50 percent boost to economic output if women participate in the workforce to the same extent as men. International organisations have also contributed to significant advances in female economic empowerment across Africa and the Middle East, with a significant impact on attitudes towards equality. The United Nations (UN) has led this charge, with gender equality high up on its agenda as one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In the Middle East, UN Women awarded 200 youth volunteers at HeForShe for reaching 20,000 commitments on women’s empowerment<a href="#_ftn3">[3]</a>, and in Africa, the organisation aims to empower up to two million women through various initiatives aimed at increasing income, wealth and business leadership skills. Beyond the UN, a large number of international organisations have also been instrumental in empowering women across the AME region. Oxfam, for example, has launched a global campaign called Raising Her Voice (RHV) which aims to promote women’s rights. This included a budget in Pakistan of over US$500,000
between the years of 2008-2013<a href="#_ftn1">[1]</a>.
In South Africa, the RHV campaign received roughly US$50,000 annually for
training and workshops that involved feminism and advocacy skills<a href="#_ftn2">[2]</a>.



Local NGO initiatives have also been key in
the advancement of female inclusion throughout the AME region. As an example, five
Lebanese NGOs and the Lebanese League for Women in Business (LLWB) teamed up in
2016 to form Girls Got IT, an NGO to provide female students with access to hands-on
tech workshops, talks by industry leaders and tutorials on digital innovation. To
take but one of many examples from Africa, a Tanzanian NGO called ‘Village
Enterprise’ works on ending extreme poverty by helping women in rural areas
through entrepreneurship and innovation. The group has been working successfully
and achieved a milestone of one million lives transformed in May 2019<a href="#_ftn3">[3]</a>. 



It’s clear that governments and civil society have done much to integrate women into AME economies, positively affecting millions of lives along the way. Nevertheless, much remains to be done. Female labour force participation rates vary widely among African states, with South Africa at 49 percent<a href="#_ftn4">[4]</a> and Tanzania at 80 percent<a href="#_ftn5">[5]</a>. On the other hand, in the GCC, women comprise just 19.2 percent of the workforce according to one study<a href="#_ftn6">[6]</a>. In this context, the private sector, with all of its economic might, constitutes perhaps the most crucial element in addressing the balance. A recent study by Deloitte showed that Africa’s private sector represents 75 percent of generated wealth and 90 percent of all employment opportunities in the continent<a href="#_ftn7">[7]</a>. Fortunately, there are encouraging signs that companies are stepping up across AME and pursuing a concerted effort to empower women with new skills and opportunities. Standard Chartered stands as a case in point. The Bank has committed to raise USD50 million, between 2019 and 2023 through fundraising and Bank-matching, to empower the next generation to learn, earn and grow via its Futuremakers programme. By no means is Standard Chartered satisfied to merely provide financial donations – it also actively implements women’s empowerment programmes such as Women in Tech, aimed at promoting the economic and social development of women entrepreneurs. To date, this programme operates in five countries with entrepreneurial female participants from Pakistan, Nigeria, the US, the UAE and my home country, Kenya. The Bank is also committed to creating a more inclusive environment to help working parents balance work and family responsibilities; its staff can enjoy the benefit of flexible working policy, a parental paid leave of up to 140 calendar days for the mother and two weeks for the spouse.



Achieving gender equality is an important moral principle and acts as a catalyst to other development outcomes such as poverty reduction, well-being and health<a href="#_ftn1">[1]</a>. Governments and NGO’s have been active in empowering women; however, change will take a collective partnership between government, NGO’s and private enterprise across the region to elevate women to an equal status. The outcome of maximising women’s potential and achieving gender equality will result in greater contributions being made and benefits to the entire region.

Op-Ed: What are the steps needed to challenge the gender divide ?

&nbsp;
<div id="attachment_320323" style="width: 540px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-320323" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-320323" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/HeForShe_b.jpg" alt="" width="530" height="353" />UN Women&#8217;s &#8216;HeForShe&#8217; initiative</div>
Johannesburg – 9 October 2018 – Gender equality is a fundamental human right but remains a distant dream for many women worldwide. The United Nations’ HeforShe is a solidarity campaign for the advancement of gender equality. Its goal is to achieve equality by encouraging both genders to partake as agents of change and take action against negative stereotypes and behaviors, faced by people with feminine personalities/genders. Grounded in the idea that gender inequality is an issue that affects all people—socially, economically and politically—it seeks to actively involve men and boys in a movement that was originally conceived as &#8220;a struggle for women by women&#8221;.
The HeForShe movement is gathering momentum globally as a cohort of select leaders from both the public and private sectors join the drive and stand out as visionaries on gender equality. On behalf of Standard Bank Group, Chief Executive Sim Tshabalala, has become one of the global “Thematic Champions” in the HeForShe movement. These leaders have committed to implement game-changing policies and concrete actions towards gender parity.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-320322 size-medium alignleft" src="http://cnbc.africa/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/HeForShe_Sim-copy-2-copy-225x300.jpg" alt="" width="225" height="300" />
“Achieving gender equity is a moral duty, a business imperative, and just plain common sense. Women embody half the world’s talent, skill and energy &#8211; and more than half of its purchasing power. So every sensible business leader must be committed to achieving gender equity in their company and to contributing to gender equity in the societies in which we operate,” says Tshabalala.
In the World Economic Forum’s latest Global Gender Gap report, it is estimated that it will take more the 217 years to achieve workplace equality after gender parity took a step backwards in the past year.
Concrete commitments made by Standard Bank Group in order to bring about tangible change include reaching parity in executive positions and to improve the representation of women in executive positions from its current 32% to 40% by 2023. Another is to lift the representation of women on the Board from 22% to 33% by 2021.
Standard Bank is also committed to increasing the representation of women Chief Executives in its Africa Regions network from 10% to 20% by 2021, while Standard Bank South Africa will improve the representation of women in executive positions from the current 35% to 40% by 2021.
While progress has been made in certain countries in Africa to close gender gaps, others remain behind the curve. Namibia and South Africa both score in the Top 20 in the WEF global report on gender equality &#8211; after closing 78% to 76% of their gender gaps &#8211; but Sub-Saharan Africa still displays a wider range of gender gap outcomes than practically any other region.
Launched by Emma Watson and the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in 2014, HeForShe represented the first global effort to actively include men and boys as change agents for gender equality at a time when most gender programs were only targeting women.
It was the beginning of a trend that only seems more relevant as stories emerge of sexual abuse and harassment suffered by women in the workplace.
The Sustainable Development Goals call for gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls, but campaigns such as last weekend’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women highlight that there is much work to be done. The U.N. recently reported that nearly 20 percent of women surveyed said they had experienced physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner in the previous year.
Originally conceived as a one-year media campaign to raise awareness about the role of men and boys in gender equality, the HeForShe website garnered more than 100,000 male supporters in its first three days. These males affirmed their commitment to the cause by declaring themselves “HeForShe” and saying that gender equality is not just a women’s issue. Early adopters included a clutch of celebrities and politicians, including former U.S. President Barack Obama, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and actor Matt Damon.
Since then, 1.6 million men have signed up online, including at least one man in every country of the world, and its “Impact Champions” include the presidents of Rwanda, Ghana, Malawi, and Indonesia, among several other heads of state. The issue has also been the subject of 2 billion conversations on social media.
But HeForShe is not without its critics. Many in the gender equality community say they would like to see the movement make more concrete demands of its male champions, and have called for civil society to play a greater role in developing and monitoring the movement.
“Now is a good moment for reflection and discussion about HeForShe, which has achieved high visibility, clear successes, and also drawbacks,” said Gary Barker, co-founder of Promundo, an NGO working to engage men and boys for gender equality, which has advised the HeForShe campaign since its launch three years ago.
“Having that amount of reach and star power on board means there’s huge potential, but we need to harness it before the movement loses momentum … [and] we need to push UN Women to go further and ask more of men,” he added.
&nbsp;
Content provided by Africa.com

How UN Women’s global ‘HeforShe’ initiative seeks to drive gender equality

Nuraan Davids and Yusef Waghid | Stellenbosch University
&nbsp;
More and more, educational leaders and managers in schools and universities are being confronted with various expressions of hate speech.
In Cape Town, South Africa, a group of high school boys compiled a songwhich included the lyrics: “I feel pain unearthly because of my hatred of kaffirs”. The word “kaffir” is an apartheid-era racial slur and possibly the most offensive word in the South African lexicon. At the University of Witwatersrand, also in South Africa, the phrase “Kill a Jew” was spray-painted on one of its main buildings.
Similarly, in the US, racist flyers were found posted on the campus of Weber State University in Utah. The flyers were recruiting students to the white supremacist Alt-Right movement and declared that “diversity is a code word for White genocide”.
In May this year Stellenbosch University in South Africa became another example. Three students put up Nazi-inspired posters on campus advertising an “Anglo-Afrikaner student” event under the motto “Fight for Stellenbosch”.
The incident caused a massive outcry and the university acted immediately and decisively to condemn the inflammatory hate speech. The students were found guilty of contravening the Student Disciplinary Code, which states that
<blockquote>A student shall not act in a manner that is racist, unfairly discriminatory, violent, grossly insulting, abusive or intimidating against any other person.
Incidents like these bring to the fore the question of how institutions of learning can and should be responding to such controversies, which lay bare our simmering intolerance of difference and “otherness”.
In our latest book, Tolerance and Dissent within Education: On cultivating Debate and Understanding, we look at how the concept of tolerance might be understood, cultivated and enacted in and through education.
One of the arguments we make is that schools and universities should deliberately widen the exposure of students and learners to a diversity of people and views. This will develop their capacities as democratic citizens and enhance the human quest for flourishing in everyday social life.
<h2>What is tolerance?</h2>
Andrew Murphy, a scholar from Rutgers University, describes tolerance as
<blockquote>the self-restraint of not restricting or reducing the rights or autonomy of others, or other ways of being and acting.</blockquote>
But in a global context of heightened bigotry, some people see an appeal to tolerance as a defence of hate speech or racism. This is not what tolerance is. All views and actions should only be tolerated to the extent that they don’t harm others – physically, psychologically or emotionally.
According to the classical Greek philosopher Socrates, tolerance is about the pursuit of truth. It is about being prepared to see the value of another person’s perspective or truth. This necessarily means humbling oneself and acknowledging one’s own limitations and fallibility. Tolerance, then, is fundamentally about equality; about recognising the capacity for both moral truth and error in ourselves and others.
Amy Gutmann from the University of Pennsylvania describes toleranceas
<blockquote>agreeing to disagree about beliefs and practices that are a matter of basic liberty.</blockquote>
This, she argues, is a way to ensure larger civic participation of people, who are recognised as equals by their fellow citizens.
Simply put, tolerance is the choice to “agree to disagree” because we respect each other as moral and civic equals.
<h2>Difference, democracy and human flourishing</h2>
Whenever diverse communities of people come together there is the potential for peaceful coexistence as well as for conflict. If we were to all agree on what to think or how to act the need for tolerance would disappear. But we don’t. So exercising tolerance is an acknowledgement of difference and disagreement – and, at the same time, a decision to co-exist despite these differences, rather than destroy them or each other.
This is fundamental to democracy, which is about equality and the right of people to believe what they believe. Agreement or consensus may be a desired end –- if only to resolve conflict – but it is not a democratic imperative. Tolerance is the tool that helps us democratically manage the dynamics of any plural community or society.
But the value of tolerance goes beyond that. In protecting and cultivating diversity, tolerance also creates the conditions for human flourishing. Disagreement and dissent can be seen as processes of “mutual incitement”. When people disagree, they are in fact inciting each other to think anew and differently about established ideas or beliefs. It is through disagreement that we dislodge ourselves from rigid ways of thinking and being – and refine our ideas and positions.
<h2>The responsibilities of schools and universities</h2>
Schools and universities must make sure that students and learners are exposed to multiple perspectives and ways of doing things. They have to encounter different viewpoints and arguments, and especially those that disrupt their own ways of thinking and their ideas of the world.
It is important that the teacher’s worldview isn’t the only one propagated in the classroom. This means teaching in a way such that pupils or students are invited to bring their own identities and equal intelligence into the conversation. They must be encouraged to engage in deliberation and debate, with mutual respect.
Critical to any educative endeavour is an understanding that there is always the possibility of another perspective and, hence, disagreement. If educational institutions can protect learners from hate speech, whilst also successfully teaching them this this, they will prepare them to become both better democratic citizens and richer people.</blockquote>
This article was first published in The Conversation.

How tolerance enhances democracy and the quest for human flourishing

Is the South African government unconcerned about the devastating unemployment in the rural areas that the National Minimum Wage (NMW) will cause? If the government generally is unconcerned, perhaps Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa should give the matter some earnest thought because he will be blamed.
In circumstances of mass unemployment, it is inhumane for the government to pretend that the jobless do not exist. It is even more inhuman to adopt legislation and regulations that have the effect of prohibiting the unemployed from working.
If the government were to introduce legislation that made it illegal for any worker to work for less than R20 per hour or R3,500 per month, and threatened them with fines or imprisonment if they should do so, such legislation would be considered evil. Legislation that makes it illegal for an employer to pay workers less than R20 per hour or R3,500 per month has the same outcome, but under this scenario, the employer is the transgressor. That law is no less evil but the legislators responsible regularly escape the blame.
Why are the unemployed South Africa’s forgotten people? Research is carried out and a furious debate occurs about increasing the wages of low-wage workers, but, for those who earn zero, there is silence. Does government consider the problem so difficult to solve that it has decided to wish away the unemployed and pretend they do not exist?
<h3>Constitutional rights of the unemployed</h3>
There is good reason to argue that the NMW will be unconstitutional in terms of some or all the sections 9(1) “equality before the law”, 9(2) “equality includes the full and equal enjoyment of all rights and freedoms”, 10 “the right to have their dignity respected and protected”, 12(1) “the right to freedom and security of the person”, 12(1)(a) “not to be deprived of freedom arbitrarily or without just cause”, 22 “every citizen has the right to choose their trade, occupation or profession freely”, and 23(1) “everyone has the right to fair labour practices”.
The freedom denied the unemployed under the NMW is their freedom of contract; the right to take care of themselves and their families by working for employers under the best conditions and for the highest wages they can find. They are deprived of the right to make these important and critical decisions for themselves because their right to contract with employers is blocked by the labour law prohibitions imposed on employers.
The NMW, to be introduced by May 2018, will prohibit employers from paying employees less than R20 per hour or R3,500 per month. This prohibition will slam shut the jobs door in the faces of the young, the old, the inexperienced, and anyone else who, for some reason, is prepared to work for a low wage to gain work experience, to earn something rather than nothing, or, simply, to have something to eat. 

<h3>Costly labour laws are barriers to employment 
</h3>
Dealing with the requirements of the Labour Relations Act and its ancillary legislation costs money. Every additional cost imposed on employers means less money available to pay existing staff or to take on more workers.
Large firms hire human resource specialists to deal with the legislative and regulatory demands of the laws. In small firms, much of the valuable time of owners and senior staff is absorbed by labour matters. When employers have factored these costs into their calculations, they are compelled to conclude that it makes economic sense to take on workers who will impose the least cash and management costs on the firm relative to their productive capacity.
Given the dynamics of business, and especially the care required in doing business in our current no-growth economy, firms are being super careful in the hiring of staff. Forcing firms to pay higher wages does not bode well for anyone at the bottom end of the jobs scale, let alone the 9.3 million who are already unemployed.
<h3>The National Minimum Wage will devastate the rural areas</h3>
The tragic consequences for the inhabitants of the US territories of Puerto Rico, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands, who in 2007 were forced to fall in with the raising of the US national federal minimum wage from $5.15 an hour in 2006, to $7.25 by 2009 should act as a warning to the South African government. There was a huge difference between the per capita GP in the territories and that in mainland USA. The calamity that hit those territories provides a clear example of the devastation the NMW will cause in areas of South Africa where the average GDP per capita is significantly lower than in the more affluent areas of the country. Employers in small towns and rural areas of the country will not be able to afford the minimum.
The reason given for replacing the existing minimum wages that have been set based on “ability to pay” is that a national minimum wage will be “easier to police”. So, making life easier for officials means that employers in impoverished areas of the country will be compelled to pay the same minimum as employers in the country’s large cities. An idea that will have brutal consequences for low-income people, whether employers or employees.
In American Samoa, by 2009, with only 30% of the scheduled increases applied, overall employment was down 30%, with 58% job losses in the tuna-canning industry and real per capita GDP down 10% from 2006 levels. During the same period, the Northern Mariana Islands experienced 35% job losses and per capita GDP down by 23%. The compulsory increase resulted in a minimum wage that was 75% of the Puerto Rican median wage. Unemployment increased rapidly and GDP per capita declined by almost 7% between 2007 and 2013.
<h3>Young victims of legislative barriers</h3>
Stats SA reported in its most recent quarterly that, “Of the 433,000 people who joined the ranks of the unemployed, approximately 58% were young people aged 15-34 increasing the youth unemployment rate by 1,6 percentage points to 38,6%”. It is predictable that firms, in view of the current poor economic condition, will be wary of taking on new staff. Bias against hiring inexperienced and potentially less productive workers will be heightened by the looming NMW, which they will factor into their calculations.
The NMW already represents a huge barrier to the employment of recent and future school leavers and the already-unemployed. Many young people, trying to overcome years of deficient schooling, will be hit by the NMW regulatory barrier and consigned to the ranks of the “forgotten”, along with the other 9.3 million.
Author: Eustace Davie is a director of the free Market Foundation. The views expressed in the article are the author’s and are not necessarily shared by the members of the Free Market Foundation.

Op-Ed: The S.A. government cannot wish away the unemployed

Thomson Reuters Foundation
When Islamic State militants brutally invaded her hometown of Kobani in Syria, Shorash didn&#8217;t initially see it as a career opportunity.
Grabbing only what she could carry, Shorash and her family trekked on foot across the Turkish border. After months of sleeping rough in parks and bouncing from one refugee camp to another, they eventually settled near Erbil, in Iraq&#8217;s relatively stable Kurdistan region.
<blockquote>&#8220;I had been looking for work without any success, and was feeling rather bored and frustrated,&#8221; said 23-year-old Shorash, who did not disclose her surname for security reasons.</blockquote>
One day, her husband told her about a local women&#8217;s centre, run by non-profit group &#8220;Women for Women International&#8221; (WfWI), that offered training to help women establish businesses.
A law graduate, Shorash was a diligent student and attended all classes, even giving birth to her daughter just hours after her final exams.
She developed a plan to establish a greenhouse construction business &#8211; in demand in the region as a modern way to grow fruit and vegetables.
&#8220;The programme changed my life &#8211; I no longer feel lonely and isolated as before,&#8221; she said.
Gender equality and empowerment of women are among the 17 global Sustainable Development Goals designed to tackle poverty, inequality and climate change by 2030.
Nowhere is support for women more important and urgent than in post-conflict situations, experts say.
<blockquote>&#8220;We believe that women survivors of war are agents of change, (and) that through empowering women we will actually empower the entire community,&#8221; said Mandana Hendessi, WfWI&#8217;s director for the Syria crisis response and Iraq.</blockquote>
The WfWI centre, one of three in Iraq, enables women to rebuild their lives after conflict, to meet in a safe space, and to learn new skills.
&#8220;People do have a very distorted view of refugee life,&#8221; Hendessi told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. &#8220;They think everybody is just sitting there in a tent waiting for food to arrive or for medicine&#8230; but we&#8217;re talking about women who back in Syria were incredibly resourceful, generally quite educated and losing all of their identity once they became a refugee.&#8221;
WOMEN BREADWINNERS
Some 4.9 million Syrians – the majority women and children – are refugees in neighbouring states, according to the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR.
The WfWI programme in Iraq supports around 400 mainly Syrian and Yazidi female refugees, and also works with men to ensure social cohesion.
As is common in post-conflict societies, many of the women have lost their male relatives to war, and find themselves thrust into the position of sole breadwinner. One in four Syrian refugee families is now headed by a woman, according to WfWI.
Projects like that supporting Shorash encourage women to grasp entrepreneurial opportunities, nurturing start-ups from wedding services and hair-salons to bakeries and sweet shops.
Research suggests men often do not adapt as well as women to new roles in times of conflict, said Nicola Jones, principal research fellow at the London-based Overseas Development Institute.
&#8220;Often women have been more flexible,&#8221; she said.
Rather than waiting for institutions to be rebuilt after wars, which can take generations, women&#8217;s informal networks are an increasingly powerful tool for driving forward economic and social recovery, she added.
NIGERIA NURSES
In northern Nigeria, a region under the shadow of Boko Haram militants, Fatima Adamu is working to equip young women to become midwives and healthcare practitioners.
In patriarchal rural communities, Adamu negotiates with local leaders to nominate a young woman to train in the city who will then return home to help close the village healthcare gap.
&#8220;The reality is nobody is coming from the city to fill that space for you, (so) you must provide,&#8221; said Adamu, explaining how she persuades villages to participate.
The &#8220;Women for Health&#8221; programme, led by Health Partners International, aims to train more than 6,000 female workers and deploy them to rural health facilities in a region where up to 90 percent of women deliver their babies without a skilled birth attendant present.
On graduating, the young women are usually employed by local governments, and must work for a minimum of three years in their villages before they can move elsewhere.
The programme has faced some resistance, however.
At least a handful of women have been divorced during their absence or returned home to find their husbands have taken another wife, said Adamu.
In some cases, the community has rallied to pressure the husband to support his wife&#8217;s training, knowing the village will benefit in the long term.
The women often take up leadership roles when they return and are more able to negotiate power structures, said Adamu.
Educating women and girls is &#8220;the surest way to address the challenges of extremism, poverty and&#8230; break the cycle of inequality&#8221;, she said, in the region ravaged by Boko Haram, an Islamist group whose insurgency has killed 15,000 people and forced some 2 million from their homes. [nNRA3ixr5l]
Historically, conflicts can accelerate women&#8217;s rights and social opportunities, as seen after World War Two in Europe, while working women can help pick up the pieces and contribute significantly to rebuilding war-torn communities, experts say.
&#8220;Often post-conflict there are real opportunities to rethink the social and political contract with citizens,&#8221; said ODI&#8217;s Jones.
(Reporting by Adela Suliman; editing by Megan Rowling. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women&#8217;s rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience. Visit <a href="http://news.trust.org/">news.trust.org</a>)
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