When the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic swept through Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea killing more than 11,000 people, members of women’s organizations served as contact tracers, conducted house-to house education campaigns, and cared for the sick when formal health infrastructure had collapsed. In Liberian communities where women’s groups were active, an organized Ebola response was nearly twice as likely to emerge than in communities without them. The community trust and pre-existing social networks that made this possible were the product of years of sustained investment in women’s peacebuilding and civic leadership. When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Ukrainian Women’s Fund activated a response within five days, channeling grants for food, water, medicines and psychosocial support across all Ukrainian regions, reaching communities that international actors could not access. When earthquakes struck Afghanistan in 2022 and again in October 2023, MADRE’s long-standing relationships with local women organizers enabled rapid humanitarian relief while international organizations were still completing security assessments. In the 2023 Herat earthquake, where more than 58% of casualties were women, the formal response was largely channeled through male community leaders who were often unaware of the most vulnerable women in their communities. Women crisis responders were the only actors who could reach them.
These are not exceptional cases. In Sudan, women’s networks organized within days of the April 2023 outbreak of war, operating community kitchens to reach more than 70,000 households daily. In Gaza, feminist activists provide humanitarian aid and community care in the near-total absence of functioning international systems. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where a new Ebola outbreak was declared in May 2026 and donor cuts have left local health systems close to collapse, women’s community groups are on the frontlines.
