IMPORTANT ISSUES TO COVER IN A GENDERED SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS

Consider looking at the following key areas:

Risks of violence and discrimination (violence against women and girls, intimate partner violence, forced marriage, early marriage, adolescent pregnancy, stigma associated with disability, HIV, ethnicity or religion etc. – likely to be heightened in crisis).

Limited economic opportunities (lack of access to income opportunities, labour market participation, limited livelihood opportunities – may be more disrupted in crisis and women more likely to be out of employment/income opportunities for longer post-crisis).

Care economy (how domestic and care responsibilities limit women’s labour market participation, or reduce girls’ attendance at school – time spent on care and domestic work likely to increase in times of crisis).

Voice and agency (at household and community level, including control over income, decision-making and intra-household resource allocation/ spending patterns – may change in crisis – including opportunities for strengthening).

Access to services:

Health – such as specialised reproductive health needs (access to family planning, health services – access may be disrupted in crisis).

Education (girls or boys not enrolled or dropping out of school – may be more disrupted in crisis and heightened risk of not returning to school after crisis).

Protection or specialised services – such as gender-based violence, child protection, justice services.

Agricultural extension and financial services which are instrumental to women’s economic autonomy but which may also be disrupted in crisis.

Financial, technological and institutional inclusion (ownership of bank accounts, mobile phones or internet access, civic documentation – access may be disrupted or documentation lost in crisis).

Poverty and vulnerability assessments and analysis

• Conduct (or draw on) a context-specific Gendered Situation Analysis for the area where the interventions is to be implemented. Identify the key gendered vulnerabilities for women and men, girls and boys and non-binary individuals, including specific vulnerabilities for individuals with diverse gender identities. Disaggregate data by age at a minimum, and other intersecting factors of relevance including disability, ethnicity and race.
  
• Gather relevant existing gender and contextual data and analysis from humanitarian and disaster management sectors from inside your organisation or externally to inform the gendered situation analysis. This will be the basis of the gender- and shock-responsive social protection programme adaptation or programme design. If no existing relevant data is available, conduct an analysis to understand the potential or actual impacts of hazards, conflict and protracted crisis on women and girls (see examples in Togo and Niger). In contexts of quick onset crisis, rapid gender assessments can be done.

• Understand the drivers of these risks and identify possible mitigation measures. Consider the existing structural drivers of gender inequality such as discriminatory gender and social norms, harmful traditional practices, and gender-blind laws and policies. Think about how crises might exacerbate these risks.

• Collect new or analyse existing data to understand the effectiveness of social protection systems for women and girls. Look explicitly at programme design and the extent of:

  • Coverage for example, use data on social protection enrolment to determine whether there are still gaps in coverage for women and girls.
  • Adequacy use updated data to identify any changes from the original Gendered Situation Analysis. Assess whether current social protection systems and programmes are adequately addressing the key gendered risks that women and girls face at different stages in their life cycle.
  • Comprehensiveness analyse whether and how the existing social protection system complements other services and programmes to meet women and girls’ needs. Findings should inform how to tweak a social protection response to address gendered vulnerabilities faced by women and girls that have not yet been sufficiently addressed or which are at risk of being exacerbated by the shock. The analysis should draw on evidence to strengthen weak programme design.
• Institutionalise risk mitigation and safeguarding measures, by developing safeguarding strategies and establishing protocols for the protection of women and girls. This might include having trained staff in place and establishing referral mechanisms.

Cash Assistance Integrated into Gender-Based Violence Case Management for Forced Migrants, Refugees, and Host Nationals in Norte de Santander, Colombia

In Norte de Santander, Colombia, Women’s Refugee Commission and partners sought to explore changes among forced migrant, refugee, and host national GBV survivors in a cash-integrated GBV case management program. For this purpose, during a two-year project, which ran from 2020 to 2022, the Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC), with research partners South Africa Medical Research Council and CARE, undertook a study in Colombia to understand the potential of integrating cash assistance into GBV case management and social care referrals for comprehensive support to survivors in humanitarian emergencies.

The programme aimed to include adult women and men, aged 18 years or older, who were survivors of or at risk of GBV, including those with diverse Sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) and those living with a disability or disabilities. CORPRODINCO caseworkers were all female, and enrolled survivors who voluntarily disclosed an incident of GBV. Caseworkers assessed participants’ need for cash assistance for protection, examining the economic drivers of their exposure to GBV risks, as well as the financial barriers to their recovery. Each GBV survivor received between USD 91 to USD 27, depending on the needs of their case. As part of GBV case management, caseworkers provided psychological counselling, information on and coordination of group workshops, and access to CORPRODINCO’s legal service. Caseworkers also activated referrals to external services as relevant, including immigration status counselling; family commissioners of the Comisaria de Familia, an institution that handles complaints of domestic violence; sexual and reproductive health services; education; and livelihood support. Service mappings and referral pathways were updated regularly to reflect services.

Case management follow-up included the monitoring of assistance received by the survivor to ensure they were not exposed to further harm. The project was evaluated at the four-month mark. The evaluation found that cash integrated GBV case management reduced incidents of GBV and associated risks up to 12 percent more than GBV case management alone, by improving the economic capacity of survivors who received cash. Compared to survivors who only received GBV case management, survivors who received cash reported earnings in the past month that were 29 percent higher, and savings that were 26 percent higher. These results suggest that access to cash assistance amplified survivors’ improvements in mental and psychological health, self-reliance, and familial relationships in comparison to survivors who did not receive cash.

The inclusion of individuals with diverse sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) in the study increased the inclusiveness of programme criteria. It also provided findings for this underserved population, helping to address evidence gaps on tailoring cash-integrated GBV case management for trans GBV survivors.¹

Key lessons

• The intervention was specifically designed to mitigate and protect GBV survivors, including women, men and including those with diverse SOGIESC in human mobility from Venezuela to Colombia.
• In addition to helping to cover case management costs, evidence showed that cash can help GBV survivors with the costs associated with fleeing an abusive relationship as well as cover costs to meet urgent needs, reducing exposure to GBV risks.
• If tailored and monitored, cash linked to referrals and protection services are appropriate to meet the needs of survivors and minimise the risk of any further exposure to harm.²

The programme can be classified as gender responsive in its design, tackling specific gendered vulnerabilities experienced by GBV survivors. It has some gender transformative elements, as part of the cash transfer was found not only to be used for mitigation, but in some cases to invest in microenterprises for economic empowerment (though this was not consistent for all participants).

1. Care (2022).

2. Care, 2022b.

Insurance against adverse shocks and weather events: Access to financial insurance products designed for women in Mali

UN Women and the UN’s Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) with the support of Norway’s Humanitarian Innovation Programme partnered with OKO, a for profit African startup that provides effective, affordable, and innovative insurance and digital solutions to farmers in emerging markets to strengthen their resilience to disasters, in the absence of state guaranteed agricultural insurance schemes. The pilot spanned eight months, from December 2021 to July 2022, in three regions in Mali.

Women farmers in Mali are particularly affected by adverse weather events and other disaster risks (drought, floods and heavy rainfall, as well as attacks from pests and diseases to their livestock) facing recurring losses in their farming activities.
UN Women, UNCDF and OKO were able to identify specific barriers women face to access crop insurance (e.g. low literacy levels, limited insurance knowledge, costs of insurance, no coverage for crops they grow, limited mobile phone access and ownership, a limited supply of tailored financial and insurance products, and a lack of digital and financial skills)and came up with digital innovations that would provide these female farmers with the necessary financial safety net to overcome these catastrophic events and improve their livelihood

Prior to this project, OKO chose the crops to cover based on their popularity in Mali, with no focus on gender, but the approach led to a massive gender imbalance in the customer base. For this project OKO surveyed 330 women in 13 villages to learn what crops are mostly grown by women. As a result of findings, OKO proposed to create a new insurance product for peanut growers. OKO also noticed that the female team members were selling to a larger proportion of female farmers, so it created a team of female-only agents. The women-only team registered 3.2 times more women than the male-only or mixed team. Through these two innovations, OKO managed to rapidly increase the rate of women among its newly registered customers. OKO surpassed the initial target given by UN Women and UNCDF to register 1,100 new women to crop insurance. OKO also increased the share of women customers to 25%. This innovative project proved that a gender-responsive approach can truly lead to impact on women’s access to insurance and overall sales. Through this pilot project, OKO reduced the gender gap in insurance adoption by 15% and registered 1,100 new female farmers to their crop insurance.¹

Key lessons:

• This example illustrates a gender-responsive weather-based insurance that identified and addressed the different gendered vulnerabilities to and impacts from climate risks and disaster-induced loss of well-being and lives, as well as differences in access to and use of financial instruments and insurance in its varied forms.
• It shows how a robust gender analysis and design improved the inclusion and protection of women farmers. An insurance instrument was designed to meet their specific realities: sold by women agents, covering women’s main crop in the region, and supported with relevant financial literacy accessible to them.

The pilot can be classified as a “gender responsive” design, leading to more women being protected from climate-induced risks to their livelihoods

1. OKO, 2022

Increasing the ability to respond to shocks through the expansion and updating of a national social registry in Pakistan

The Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) in Pakistan was established in 2008.
It transfers cash to vulnerable women and their families from the poorest households across the country. BISP’s long-term objectives include eradicating extreme and chronic poverty and empowering women.¹ With this aim, the cash transfers provided are designed and structured to influence entrenched gender norms, rendering it more gender transformative. For instance, since its inception, women are the main recipients of the income transfer, the programme helps women to manage and build financial resources, helps them to realise their rights as well as those of their daughters and wider families, and strengthens women’s representation in both the community and the workforce.²

The BISP has been making relevant adaptations to respond to shocks. When the first wave of COVID-19 hit Pakistan in May 2020, the government wanted to provide cash assistance to the poorest households to mitigate effects of the pandemic on their wellbeing, but this was hindered because BISP’s social registry data was out of date, with an effort to collect data through a new digital survey only being rolled out in some localities. BISP prioritised the completion of the data collection process and raised the eligibility threshold of the programme to increase coverage given the impacts of the pandemic. By the end of 2022, a total of 35 million households had been entered in the Registry, with nine million eligible for financial support.

Then in 2022 an additional shock hit the country: flooding which quickly pushed many households into poverty, which urgently required different types of assistance, including cash. This presented BISP with the highly complex challenges of identifying and providing rapid financial support to newly vulnerable families. This catalysed the shock responsiveness of Pakistan’s social protection system.³

BISP began a process of transferring the static registration system to a dynamic one, capable of registering and updating household data on an on-going basis, essential for adapting social assistance to households’ changing circumstances and to enable a rapid response to shocks and crises as they arise. Fundamental components of this strategy involved defining the digital inputs required to move towards a more integrated and interoperable system to link up Pakistan’s many social protection programmes, improving the payments system, and a rapid expansion of registration centres to bring BISP services closer to people’s homes.

Fostering gender norm change

The BISP seeks to enhance gender equity in a number of ways. In addition to transferring the cash transfer to women, BISP also provides conditional cash transfers which support poor families to access mother and infant health and nutrition services and education. The programme also pays a higher amount to families for keeping girls in school compared with boys at all grades, as well as a graduation bonus when girls complete their primary education. BISP is also piloting the provision of iron and folic acid tablets to girls growing up in poor households. Girls who take these supplements learn about why they are so important for their health and, once in the programme, this secures additional cash for their households. 

With the support of German Development Cooperation, BISP is also challenging traditional gender norms in more substantive ways. The incorporation of female supervisors and ushers at all of the BISP centres enables the rapid expansion of the Registry and supports the empowerment of women from poor and vulnerable communities who are working there. Many of the new female employees have themselves been recipients of BISP cash transfers, giving them particularly useful insight into the situation of the women coming to register. These women are helping to transform the image of women in their communities. The intervention therefore does not treat women as passive recipients of support but as agents of change, as well as challenging social norms around women’s employment outside the home.

Key lessons:

• This example illustrates the importance of having gender responsive and/or gender transformative social protection programmes as the basis of social protection systems, which, when adapted to respond to shocks, can lead to gender responsive results.
• Investing in the expansion of social registries is crucial to enable rapid response to shocks by temporarily increasing access to cash transfers to those affected by specific crises.
• Including women in cash transfer programmes, not only as beneficiaries and recipients but also as active participants, can help empower them and transform their roles within their communities.

This programme design can be called “gender transformative”.

1. Cookson, et al (2022).

2. Debenedetti (2021).

3. Ibid.

4. Cookson, et al (2021).

5. Lawson (2023).

USING DIGITAL SOCIAL ASSISTANCE TO REACH WOMEN IN THE INFORMAL ECONOMY DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC IN TOGO

Informal workers constitute 90.4% of workers in the Togolese economy. Informal work accounts for 95% of women’s and 90% of men’s employment.¹ Informal sector workers were especially affected during the pandemic as they were largely unable to work from home and maintain their livelihoods. To mitigate the pandemic’s economic impact, in April 2020 the government introduced the Novissi programme, a fully digital, unconditional cash transfer scheme.

To enrol beneficiaries, the government used voter ID cards and drew on the database from the February 2020 elections which contained over 90% of the country’s adults, who had self-declared their occupations and home locations. Individuals could register from any type of phone, not only smart phones,² making the process more accessible to both women and men. Once deemed eligible, the user’s mobile money account was automatically credited with the funds.

Novissi employed a gender-differentiated lens in designating a higher transfer amount for female beneficiaries, with the explicit objective of countering some of the gender inequalities in the country. On average, women in Togo have lower educational attainment, fewer job opportunities, and less income, making them more vulnerable to and affected by multidimensional poverty than men.³ Women also typically occupy roles that are critical to both food supply chains and local economies, including but not limited to dressmakers, hairdressers, food vendors, resellers, and caregivers, so it was important for the economy for them to continue working. In addition, it was assumed that female heads of household would better allocate household spending for essential household needs. The President’s buy-in helped build public support for Novissi’s gender-differentiated approach. According to official records, the programme had reached nearly 820,000 beneficiaries by March 2021—65% of them women.⁴

Nevertheless, it is important to note that, while women constituted over 60% of the total of programme beneficiaries, learnings from monitoring done throughout the scheme revealed that women (mostly in rural areas), had lower access to digital terminals than men and that generally the only existing phone belonged to men, making it difficult for women to have direct access to the social assistance funds allocated to them.⁵

Key lessons

• Gender responsive context analysis helped determine that women were overrepresented in the informal economy. Based on findings, a greater number of women beneficiaries received higher transfer amounts in order to support the reestablishment of supply chains in the economy of which women are part of, as well as being better able to reach other members of the household by paying women.
• Through analysis, it was found that most women in the informal sector had access to a voter ID to be used for the registry, and many, mostly in urban areas have direct or indirect access to a mobile phone for payment, so the design did not automatically exclude the majority of women.
• Closing the gender gap in mobile phone access and use would therefore directly contribute to the economic empowerment of women and girls, and to achieving equal opportunity in accessing funds.

This programme design can be labelled as “gender responsive”.

1. Cookson, et al (2022).

2. Debenedetti (2021).

3. Ibid.

4. Cookson, et al (2021).

5. Lawson (2023).

Social assistance: Building gender responsive and transformative dimensions into Niger’s National Cash transfer programme

Niger is one of the poorest countries in the world with a rural poverty rate of 51.4% and ranks last in human development indicators. Landlocked in the Sahel, its population is highly exposed to climate shocks and food insecurity. To address this, the Government of Niger set up a social protection system with a cash transfer programme as its cornerstone in 2012. The programme provides monthly payments of approximately USD 39 (11% of annual household consumption for targeted poor rural households). Cash transfers are unconditional and targeted to mostly rural communes with highest poverty rates. Poverty-targeting is applied to determine the beneficiary households. Within selected households, a woman over 20 was the recipient of the cash transfers. By 2019, the programme had reached 22,500 households.

An experimental intervention was supported by the World Bank to complement the third phase of the cash transfer with multifaceted interventions to assess the results of tackling psychosocial and capital constraints to alleviate poverty and vulnerability resulting from climate shocks and food insecurity.

The core programme components promoted financial inclusion, basic micro-entrepreneurship skills and market access to beneficiaries, in most cases women.
A second component addressed capital constraints by providing a lump-sum cash grant for productive purposes. A third component – the most transformative - provided psychosocial interventions that aimed to strengthen aspirations and interpersonal and intrapersonal skills, as well as to address gender and social norms. This last component included life skills training, which while relatively light, aimed to trigger three main mechanisms:

1. To build personal psychological assets, including self-efficacy, self-worth, aspirations, and optimism about the future, while developing behavioural skills related to interpersonal communication, problem-solving, leadership, and goal setting. This intervention was not directly related to women’s psychosocial vulnerability in the face of shocks;
2. To promote social empowerment, including social standing in the community, community support and solidarity, and supportive social norms around women’s income generating activities; and
3. To foster positive intra-household dynamics, including interpersonal trust, closeness, and conflict resolution, as well as women’s decision-making power and control over resources.

The full community, including elders, economic and traditional leaders, and programme beneficiaries and their husbands (or other family members), were invited to attend a video screening and community discussion, after which trained facilitators guided a public discussion on social norms, aspirations, and community values.

Findings from the evaluation showed that all three modalities of the intervention induced widespread improvements in consumption, revenues and psychosocial well-being. However, combinations that included the psychosocial component produced the largest increase in women’s control over earnings, strengthened relationships and expanded social support. The programme’s results highlight the value of addressing women’s psychosocial constraints— not just primarily capital constraints—to open pathways out of extreme poverty and toward women’s empowerment.¹

Key lessons

• The transfer recipients were women with complementary components to achieve transformative change by tackling psychosocial and capital constraints.
• The World Bank centred its multifaceted intervention (experiment) on existing programme beneficiaries, introducing specific gender transformative design and implementation components.
• Complementary programming promoted financial inclusion, basic micro-entrepreneurship skills and market access to beneficiaries and lump-sum cash grants intended for productive purposes to some beneficiaries as well as psychosocial interventions, including life skills training, to strengthen aspirations, interpersonal and intrapersonal skills, with an emphasis on addressing gender and social norms.

Given their design, the components of the intervention sought to be “gender transformative”, addressing specific gender vulnerabilities and aiming to dismantle discriminatory social norms.

Novel extreme heat microinsurance launched in India to protect women informal sector workers

The Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center (Arsht-Rock), in partnership with the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), and Blue Marble, have created the Extreme Heat Income Insurance, a new, parametric insurance to help women in India recover wages lost due to climate-driven extreme heat events.

In India’s informal sector, women work for prolonged periods of time in dangerously hot conditions which leads to preventable pain and suffering and illnesses, ranging from lingering rashes, to chronic heart and kidney disease. The Extreme Heat Income Insurance aims to ensure that these women do not have to risk their health while supporting their families’ financial security.

The Extreme Heat Income Insurance is activated when specific extreme heat conditions that are expected to result in negative health outcomes are met. At this point, a payment to SEWA members’ bank accounts is generated to compensate for projected lost income due to unsafe working conditions created by extreme heat. The tool is designed to pay out multiple times in one heat season to replace income—currently estimated at $3 per day—when the heat event occurs. In the pilot phase, the premium will be paid by the program, not by the women participants, with a local insurer offering the cover.

The purpose of the microinsurance product is to protect the health and livelihoods of heat-exposed women in the informal sector in India, which accounts for 93% of the country’s labour force. Beginning in April 2023 as the hottest season and frequent heat waves begins to arrive in India, Arsht-Rock, SEWA, and Blue Marble will target 21,000 SEWA members in Ahmedabad across a variety of occupations—from salt pan miners, waste recyclers, and head loaders, street vendors to farmers, ship breakers, construction, and home-based workers—to participate in phase one. Based on learnings from the pilot, the goal is to quickly scale to the entire 2.5 million SEWA member community spanning 18 states and beyond, in future heat seasons.

To complement the income replacement payout, Arsht-Rock, SEWA, and Blue Marble are exploring the addition of personal accident, maternity care, and disability products over time, intended to improve health and build more secure household finances, in addition to an early warning mechanism and trainings based on forecasted heat conditions on the health of participants. These additional covers will be informed by market research during the product design phase.¹

Key lessons:

• This innovative social insurance scheme illustrates the importance of analysing and understanding risks faced by different groups of women and girls in the context of climate shocks – in this case informal sector working women – to design instruments that can respond to these specific risks.
• Innovation and partnerships between development actors in the context of climate related shocks can pave the way for new instruments to better and more specifically mitigate the economic and health risks faced by women and girls.

This type of social insurance is gender responsive as it directly addresses identified economic constraints and health risks faced by informal sector working women, resulting from climate related shocks.

1. Source: https://onebillionresilient.org/2023/02/06/extreme-heat-microinsurance-launched-in-india-to-protect-women/

Cash for work programme empowering Syrian refugees

Nearly 80,000 of the Syrians who have escaped the war in their country have sought shelter at Jordan’s largest refugee camp, Za’atari. UN Women runs economic empowerment and protection programming for women in the camp via three ‘Oases’ safe spaces for women and girls which have been operational since 2012 and are financed with funds from the Governments of Finland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands and the Republic of Korea. These spaces receive approximately 5,000 visitors per month, of which close to 1,000 are regular users. The spaces offer economic opportunities, protection referral services, day care services – to allow parents to work, and life skills such as Arabic and English literacy and computer classes. In addition to these services, UN Women facilitates and supports a women’s camp committee which meets with camp decision-makers on issues ranging from camp security to food vouchers and hygiene, providing a voice to women and men in the camp and breaking the isolation faced by women in the camp.

In addition, cash-for-work opportunities are offered in ‘Oases’ that include tailoring school uniforms, repurposing UNHCR tents into reusable bags, crafts-making, teaching, and working as beauticians, security guards and childcare professionals. This cash for work scheme allows women to gain certain economic independence to meet basic household needs, while the supportive services offered at the space provide women and girls with the opportunity to break the chain of isolation, develop women’s skills, provide them with access to public space, economic independence and gives them the opportunity to restore their dignity. ^{1, 2}

Key lessons

• This example of the gender-responsive and transformative cash-for-work programme for Syrian refugee women in Jordan illustrates the need to identify the specific constraints women face in achieving economic empowerment.
• Women lacked income generating alternatives in the camp which the programme was able to provide through cash for work.
• The programme was also accompanied by measures to develop skills and promote social capital for a more transformational effect.
• Combining economic, protection and social activities and service provision helped meet the range of needs that women face in earning incomes and engaging in public life coming from a conflict-context.
• Fostered engagement of women’s camp committees in decision-making to ensure that women and girls’ needs are adequately represented and addressed.

This programme design can be called “gender transformative”

1. https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2015/10/cash-for-work-programme-economically-empowers-syrian-refugees

2. This case study is a promising practice, included in the Corporate Thematic Evaluation of UN Women’s Contribution To Humanitarian Action

Access to health insurance for women care-givers in Senegal

Northern Senegal has experienced a climatic shift during the past 25 years resulting in crop and livestock production becoming even more difficult, as desertification extends further into the country from the Sahara,¹ weakening livelihoods. Over two-thirds of women in Senegal work in the agricultural sector in rural areas, where access to basic services such as energy, water, health or sanitation is limited and where productive and reproductive activities overlap leaving them limited time for paid work.

A survey carried out by UN Women among 400 women farmers in Northern Senegal shows that women devote up to 12 hours daily to unpaid work including caring for family members, domestic work, and community activities given their limited access to basic services and infrastructure. Much of this time is devoted to caring for members of the households who become ill as a result of the adverse conditions. This results in women having less time to work their land and build economic resilience.

Since 2021, UN Women has worked with local, regional and national government partners, the private sector, and women’s organisations to develop the “Transformative approaches for recognising, reducing, and redistributing (3R) unpaid care work in women’s economic empowerment” programme, funded by the Government of Canada. Through this work, Senegal’s National Health Insurance Agency has allowed the adaptation of services to the needs of rural women, enabling them to access an insurance system to mitigate the risk of income loss due to illness in the household. Through awareness raising and capacity building, more than 1000 rural women members of a farmers’ network have enrolled in national health insurance for the first time, accessing coverage for themselves and their households – reaching nearly 7000 people.

The programme supported the adaptation of the insurance product to the needs and constraints faced by rural women, through a reduction of the premium, expanding payment options, and setting up sustainable mechanisms to facilitate financing of the insurance premium via community-based savings groups. The programme has identified and engaged selected private sector innovators, fintechs and service providers in the insurance, mobile savings and asset financing markets to help them design and adapt their products and services to rural women’s needs and priorities. As a result, a number of solutions are being tailored to improve access to health insurance for women and their households, to improve women’s access to saving products, financing and risk-transfer mechanisms for income-generating activities, productive assets and agricultural inputs, including mobile layaway and asset financing mechanisms.²

Key lessons

• This example from Senegal in a context in which farmers are vulnerable to climate shocks highlights the relevance of understanding gendered risks in a specific context, identifying the particular costs for rural women of facing illness in the household in terms of having to stop farming to engage in care due to established social norms, and providing a specific coverage for this risk. The example also highlights the importance of engaging women's organisations to reflect women's needs and voices.
• Gendered analysis highlighted the specific risks that women face in balancing care work and building economic resilience.
• The insurance is linked to the government’s national health insurance, but complements its reach with products tailored to women’s transformational needs, such as access to savings, financing, among others.

This programme can be classified as “gender transformative” since it was not only specifically designed to reach women and address their needs, it also helps them increase savings and engage in income generating opportunities that can lead to more transformational livelihood outcomes.

1. https://www.adaptation-undp.org/explore/western-africa/senegal.

2. UN Women (2022).