Women Entrepreneurs as Catalysts for Post-Conflict Recovery in Africa
When the guns fall silent, who rebuilds the world?
In post-conflict Africa, the answer is rarely the formal institutions that dominate traditional recovery frameworks. It is women.
In Women Entrepreneurs as Catalysts for Post-Conflict Recovery in Africa, renowned expert Thelma Ekiyor-Solanke shatters the narrative of women as passive victims of war. Drawing on nearly three decades of frontline experience across Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Rwanda, Ekiyor-Solanke reveals how women's entrepreneurship serves as the ultimate engine for peacebuilding, trauma recovery, and systemic change.
Featuring a powerful foreword by Nobel Laureate Leymah Gbowee, this groundbreaking book bridges the gap between feminist economics and grassroots reality. It is not just a theoretical exploration; it is a vital, field-tested manual for those working in fragile and conflict-affected states.
Inside this comprehensive guide and practitioner's toolkit, you will discover:
- The Architecture of Recovery: How women's microenterprises and cooperatives act as the first functioning systems of economic and social stabilization.
- Trauma-Informed Empowerment: Strategies to integrate psychosocial healing with economic development, turning survival into sustainable growth.
- 10 Actionable Toolkits: Field-ready frameworks for ecosystem diagnostics, financial inclusion, digital empowerment, and engaging male gatekeepers.
- Systemic Change Models: Proven methods to shift gender norms, rebuild social capital, and transition women from economic actors to institutional leaders.
Whether you are an NGO director, a policymaker, a donor, or a researcher, this book provides the context-specific blueprints needed to support the women who are already holding their communities together.
Stop treating women's economic agency as a side note. It is the story of recovery.