If your house was on fire, you wouldn’t sit back and ponder whether hosing it down is the right option. You would do what works and douse those flames with water. Yet these days, governments are watching the gathering flames of entrenched humanitarian disasters and equivocating over whether water is really the best way to go.
There is a dangerous and misguided notion taking hold among states that are charged with funding and coordinating international humanitarian responses. More and more, they float the claim that there is insufficient proof of the effectiveness of grassroots women’s interventions in crisis settings. This claim is not just demonstrably false, it also threatens to divert much-needed resources away from the very people making the best use of them.
Community organising for peace, Colombia. Credit: MADRE
