The Contribution of Women to Peace and Reconciliation

micro-credit programme, which is managed by community-based organizations.
Microfinance
UNRWA’s microfinance department provides income-generating opportunities
for Palestinian refugees, as well as other poor or marginal groups
who live and work near them. It extends credit and complementary financial
services to small-business owners, microenterprise entrepreneurs
and households. These investments sustain and create jobs,
reduce poverty, and empower our clients, particularly women. It pro vides
working capital loans to small businesses and microenterprises. It is the
largest financial intermediary to these sectors in Gaza. Its solidarity group
lending specifically targets women entrepreneurs, providing them with
critical employment and income opportunities. Improve the quality of
life for small business owners, micro-entrepreneurs, and poor households
through the provision of credit, aiming at sustaining jobs, decreasing
unemployment, reducing poverty, economic empowerment of
women, youth and the aged, and the provision of income generating
and asset building opportunities for Palestinian refugees and other poor
and marginal groups. The microfinance department grew out of one of
the most difficult microfinance environments in the world, oversha -
dowed by decades of occupation and unique restrictions on enterprise
and trade. It began operating in Gaza in 1991, when an Israeli closure of
the Gaza Strip sharply curtailed local access to the Israeli labour market.
Resulting hardships were exacerbated by a fall in Palestinian remittances
from the Arab Gulf following that year’s Iraq war. To bolster local employment,
UNRWA provided credit to small and medium-scale busi -
nesses, working with an initial capital fund of US$407,000. Since then
the department has become the largest microcredit institution in Gaza,
and a uniquely positioned regional microfinance organization. Many of
the microfinance department’s clients operate small, often informal businesses
on the margins of the economy.
They include vegetable stallholders, at-home seamstresses, garage
owners and fishermen. Many run businesses that are not registered
with the government, let alone municipal or tax authorities.
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