Date of Award

2-3-2026

Thesis Type

PhD

Document Type

Thesis

Divisions

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

Department

Gender Studies Programme

Institution

Universiti Malaya

Abstract

This study examined the impact and effectiveness of humanitarian aid on women heads of household’s empowerment through the Enhanced Resilience Program (ERP), an example of new humanitarianism, during the crisis in Yemen in the Hajjah and the Abyan governorates, two different locales with its specific socio-cultural norms on gender. Employing qualitative research methodology guided by the feminist perspective, the study interviewed 32 women heads of households, with half from each of the governorates. The focus on women heads of households was due to the specific challenges and burdens they faced during the armed conflict and by virtue of them being the ERP’s beneficiaries. The research explored these women’s experiences in receiving aid, their perceptions and the adopted coping strategies to understand if and how ERP had responded to their needs and foster empowerment in terms of these two components, namely, the livelihood component representing strategic needs and the solar energy component representing practical needs. Providing a comprehensive overview of the context, the International Donor Agency (IDA) policies and practices were included in the study to analyse if and how it empowers or disempowers women’s capacities. Significantly, the IDA’s local partners ground level implementation in delivering the humanitarian aid was also analysed to study if and how women heads of households were consulted and their coping strategies for survival during the crisis considered in the design and implementation of the ERP program. Specifically, the research included interviews of three employees of the IDA who were directly involved in overseeing and designing the ERP and six senior and field employees of the local partners. The research has three main analytical frameworks, namely, women’s empowerment, intersectionality and coping strategies. Engaging with various scholarly concepts of empowerment, the study definition of this in the context of the humanitarian crisis setting is a process that encompasses women’s agency and involves collective action to support their empowerment. Anchoring humanitarian aid on the rights-based approach, the research highlighted the significance of women’s agency and the need for humanitarian agencies to engage with them, and the community for collective action to minimize restrictions against women, for example, in terms of their mobility, and types and location of the business they could be involved in. Furthermore, the study examines how various social identities and structural factors—such as gender, class, education level, socio-economic status, and social constraints—intersect and shape women’s experiences in receiving aid. The study observed that humanitarian agencies can create more effective programme that upholds the rights-based approach and adopts a more meaningful gender perspective that takes into account intersectionality rather than only involving a certain percentage of women in its program. Significantly, as intersectionality shaped women’s experiences in adopting coping strategies to survive the crisis and in receiving humanitarian aid, it is important to incorporate this in designing humanitarian programme that fosters women’s empowerment during the humanitarian crisis.

Initial

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Additional Information

Thesis (PhD) – Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Universiti Malaya, 2026.

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