Dakar: Across West and Central Africa, humanitarian crises are disrupting lives in profoundly unequal ways. For women and girls, conflict and displacement can bring heightened risks of violence, loss of livelihoods, and barriers to services they depend on. This World Humanitarian Day, we explore five ways humanitarian workers and women-led organizations are responding, from protecting women at greater risk of violence to helping them rebuild their lives with dignity.
According to African Press Organization, humanitarian actors are often asked to do more with less. However, as needs continue to grow and resources shrink, fewer women and girls can be reached with the protection and support they need. Nearly 55 million people across West and Central Africa are projected to face acute food insecurity this year, with regions such as the Central Sahel, north-east Nigeria, the Central African Republic, and eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo severely underfunded. In north-east Nigeria, women and children, particularly girls, account for approximately 83 percent of people in need of humanitarian assistance, illustrating how protracted crises disproportionately affect women and children.
Globally, UN Women's 2026 Beyond the Breaking Point report found that 84 percent of women-led and women's rights organizations are seeing more women and girls requiring support, while 88 percent say their capacity falls below current needs. In underfunded and often overlooked crises, the needs, rights, and voices of women and girls are at heightened risk of being marginalized. On the front lines, UN Women's humanitarian workers help ensure that gender equality and the priorities of women and girls remain central to humanitarian response efforts.
Humanitarian crises deepen existing inequalities, exposing women and girls to greater risks of violence and exclusion from essential services. During the 2026 Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, women and girls accounted for 53.4 percent of laboratory-confirmed cases. Among adolescents, the disparity was even greater: girls represented more than 61 percent of confirmed cases. In north-east Nigeria, nearly 6 in 10 people in need of humanitarian assistance are women and girls. They also account for 55 percent of people forced from their homes, according to a 2023 analysis by OCHA, UNFPA, and UN Women.
Effective protection starts with understanding what women and girls face in a crisis. On the ground, UN Women humanitarian workers help bring those realities into the response, working with women's organizations and communities to identify specific needs, protect rights and dignity, and ensure women have a voice in the decisions that affect them.
For women displaced by conflict, protection must go beyond reaching physical safety. It must guarantee the resources, opportunities, and sustained support they need to rebuild their lives with dignity, earn an income, develop new skills, and reclaim control over their future. In Mali, displaced women have found a way back to learning through UN Women's Second Chance Education programme. Learning new skills and finding pathways to employment or entrepreneurship can help women earn an income again and rebuild with greater independence.
Across communities affected by conflict, women are helping prevent violence, resolve disputes, and rebuild trust. Recently, thirty women's organizations from Nigeria, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the DRC, Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, and Niger participated in a regional capacity-building workshop on women's leadership and engagement in humanitarian action. In Tanganyika, women from Twa and Bantu communities helped bring the two communities together through Village Peace Committees, contributing to reduced violence against women and girls.
Women-led organizations connect women and girls to protection and essential services, including in communities where humanitarian access is limited. However, shrinking resources are threatening their work. Globally, UN Women's Beyond the Breaking Point report found that 77 percent of surveyed women's organizations have lost staff because of funding cuts, while 45 percent have six months or less of operational funding remaining. Where crises persist for years, protecting women and girls requires sustaining the local actors who can reach them and remain alongside their communities.