Women Lead in Emergencies

Women's leadership in humanitarian crisis - why does it matter?

Women and girls are hardest hit by conflict and disasters - and in ways that differ from men and boys. For instance, pregnant women and girls have specific healthcare needs which often go unaddressed during humanitarian crises. Women are also often the first to respond to meet the needs of their families and communities.

Despite this, women affected by crisis often have little or no influence over the design and delivery of humanitarian assistance. This matters because women have a right to participate in decisions that affect their lives. It also matters because, without women’s participation, humanitarian assistance often does not meet women and girls’ needs.

From menstrual hygiene to the heightened risk of sexual violence during crisis, if women are not heard on issues which impact them specifically, it’s likely that the services designed by governments or NGOs will fail to address them. Instead, they can reinforce gender inequalities and cause harm.

What is a humanitarian crisis?

Humanitarian crises occur when people are unable to meet their basic needs due to conflict, disasters or climate impacts. While some are sudden - like earthquakes or cyclones - many are ongoing or recurrent, including long-term conflict, displacement and repeated droughts or floods.

CARE’s Women Lead in Emergencies approach works across all of these contexts - empowering women to take the lead in reducing risks before crises, shaping humanitarian response during emergencies, and driving recovery, resilience and peacebuilding over the longer term.

What is the Women Lead in Emergencies approach?

CARE's Women Lead in Emergencies approach shifts power and resources directly to women in communities affected by crisis - enabling them to address critical needs in their communities, before during and after crisis. The approach supports them to overcome barriers to their participation in community decision-making and action.

Women Lead in Emergencies does not prescribe what ‘success’ looks like, but rather supports women’s community groups group to develop and deliver their own community initiatives. This means women can choose to focus on what matters most to them. CARE’s teams and partners support them to achieve those goals. Some of the priority issues chosen by the groups and the outcomes they’ve achieved include:

• In Sudan, women improved access to clean water, improved community health and sanitation practices and drastically reduced rates of Cholera.
• In Ukraine, women improved access to social services for internally displaced people, improved waste management systems for marginalised Roma communities, and several Women Lead in Emergencies groups registered and secured funding as formal women’s rights organisations.
• In Uganda, women secured a new and safely accessible humanitarian food distribution point for women in their refugee camp.
• In Ethiopia, women set up community security patrols, helped rebuild vital infrastructure such as bridges, installed electricity throughout their community, and meaningfully participated in peace and recovery processes.
• In Nigeria, women improved access to gender-based violence referral mechanisms and sexual and reproductive health services for women and girls, increased enrolment of young girls in schools, and reduced rates of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).

Working together to improve lives for others in their community built women's confidence and skills and showed that, when they have the opportunity, women are effective leaders able to bring about change.

Scaling the Women Lead in Emergencies approach

Since the successful independent evaluation of five Women Lead in Emergencies pilots in 2021, the approach has been used in CARE programmes across 25 countries, from conflict zones to cyclical and long-term protracted crises.

Based on learning with country teams and partners, CARE International UK released a new version of the Women Lead in Emergencies Toolkit in 2025. This Toolkit includes guidance and tools for project teams to use to implement activities in the six components of a Women Lead in Emergencies project: Analyse; Reflect; Co-Create; Act; Learn; and Engage Men.

Women Lead in Emergencies Model

You can find out more about the Women Lead in Emergencies model by downloading the Overview Guidance Note below.

To reach more women with Women Lead in Emergencies, CARE International UK has a new partnership with the GiE Group to pilot offering training and tools to women’s rights organisations and other humanitarian agencies so that they can use the approach in their own programmes.

Impact example: Refugee women lead in Uganda

Women Lead members in Omugo decided they wanted to play an active role in the camp’s decision-making by running for election on the Refugee Welfare Council. Watch the video below to hear from Selwa Alice and other candidates about why they wanted to stand for election, and the change they wanted to see as a result.

Impact example: Roma women lead in Ukraine

CARE’s Women Lead in Emergencies programme in Ukraine combined flexible funding to six women’s rights organisations with support to enable them to use the Women Lead in Emergencies model with their own women’s community groups.

Winds of Change supported 10 Roma community groups in Odesa and Mykolaiv to deliver their own initiatives, including improving waste removal, water filtration systems and inclusive playgrounds for their communities.

Watch the video below to hear more about how this strengthened women’s organisations and community services in Ukraine.