Making Distributions Safer

Empowered Aid Sector Tip Sheets serve as concise guides for those interested in mitigating sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) in humanitarian settings by outlining sector-specific indicators and risk factors of SEA, and subsequently providing sector-specific recommendations to mitigate risks of SEA. Empowered Aid currently offers Tip Sheets for Food, Shelter, Cash, Fuel & Firewood, and WASH sectors, and each sector sheet is available in English, Spanish, French, and Arabic.

This report shares findings from the first phase of Empowered Aid in Uganda around risks of sexual exploitation and abuse in relation to food, WASH, shelter, and fuel and firewood, throughout the distribution process. It is based on rigorous, longitudinal qualitative research with women and girls living in Bidi Bidi and Imvepi refugee settlements in Uganda. The report also summarizes findings related to other types of distribution-related gender-based violence. It provides targeted, action-oriented recommendations to make aid distributions safer for women and girls, grounded in their own voices

This brief shares findings from the first phase of Empowered Aid in Uganda around risks of sexual exploitation and abuse in relation to food, WASH, shelter, and fuel and firewood, throughout the distribution process. It is based on rigorous, longitudinal qualitative research with women and girls living in Bidi Bidi and Imvepi refugee settlements in Uganda. It provides targeted, action-oriented recommendations to make aid distributions safer for women and girls, grounded in their own voices.

This brief summarizes recommendations to prevent and respond to SEA in the context of COVID-19.

This brief summarizes key findings around SEA in relation to food distribution and provides targeted recommendations to make food distribution safer for women and girls.

This brief summarizes key findings around SEA in relation to WASH and provides targeted recommendations to make WASH assistance safer for women and girls.

This brief summarizes key findings around SEA in relation to shelter aid and provides targeted recommendations to make shelter-related distributions safer for women and girls.

This brief summarizes key findings around SEA in relation to fuel and firewood and provides targeted recommendations to make fuel and firewood assistance safer for women and girls.

This booklet shares the reports from the four pilots conducted in Uganda – the first food distribution, dignity kit distribution, the second food distribution, and a solar lamp distribution – to test recommendations made by women and girls that could increase their safety at aid distributions. The booklet contains the summary report for each pilot as well as individual reports for each of the tools used during the distribution.

This report shares findings from the first phase of Empowered Aid in Lebanon around risks of sexual exploitation and abuse in relation to food, WASH, shelter, and cash assistance, throughout the distribution process. It is based on rigorous, longitudinal qualitative research with women and girls living in an urban refugee context in Tripoli, Lebanon. The report also summarizes findings related to other types of distribution-related gender-based violence. It provides targeted, action-oriented recommendations to make aid distributions safer for women and girls, grounded in their own voices.

This brief shares findings from the first phase of Empowered Aid in Lebanon around risks of sexual exploitation and abuse in relation to food, WASH, shelter, and cash assistance, throughout the distribution process. It is based on rigorous, longitudinal qualitative research with women and girls living in an urban refugee context in Tripoli, Lebanon. It provides targeted, action-oriented recommendations to make aid distributions safer for women and girls, grounded in their own voices.

This brief summarizes recommendations to prevent and respond to SEA in the context of COVID-19.

This brief summarizes key findings around SEA in relation to food distribution and provides targeted recommendations to make food distribution safer for women and girls.

This brief summarizes key findings around SEA in relation to WASH and provides targeted recommendations to make WASH assistance safer for women and girls.

This brief summarizes key findings around SEA in relation to shelter aid, and provides targeted recommendations to make shelter-related distributions safer for women and girls.

This brief summarizes key findings around SEA in relation to cash assistance, and provides targeted recommendations to make cash assistance safer for women and girls.

This booklet shares the reports from the two pilots conducted in Lebanon – a fuel voucher distribution and a food distribution – to test recommendations made by women and girls that could increase their safety at aid distributions. The booklet contains the summary report for each pilot as well as individual reports for each of the tools used during the distribution.

The Empowered Aid Lebanon team in CARE International in Lebanon with the support of the GWI team developed an animated video to summarize the findings of the Phase II aid distribution pilots implemented in partnership with Union of Relief & Development Associations (URDA) in Lebanon. The animated video is an example of how to communicate back findings visually and creatively with women, girls, and affected communities, in which literacy may be a barrier.

Video Citation: Karim Koleilat, Independent animator, and CARE International in Lebanon. Beirut: Lebanon.

This report shares findings from Empowered Aid which began operating in Jordan in September 2022, in partnership with World Vision International, to scale up the interventions arising from completed research in Uganda, Lebanon, and Bangladesh to World Vision Syria Response (WVSR) Programs in Jordan. This phase will build on the participatory research in other contexts, by contextualizing and piloting findings to support aid actors to implement scalable, evidence-based models for safer aid distributions and service delivery. It provides targeted, action-oriented recommendations to make aid distributions safer for women and girls, grounded in their own voices.

Empowered Aid’s Principal Investigator, Alina Potts, and Uganda Research Manager for Phase 1, Harriet Kolli, joined the University of Cambridge Network for Participatory and Collaborative Research Methods to talk about “Shifting Power to Refugee Women and Girls: Using Feminist Participatory Action Research in Humanitarian Crises”, based on Empowered Aid’s participatory action research in Uganda and Lebanon. You can watch the video here.

Co-authored with our Empowered Aid Lebanon partners URDA and CARE, our latest article is published in the Humanitarian Practice Network's Humanitarian Exchange's May issue on Localisation and local humanitarian action. It shares reflections from Jihan Kaisi and Rosy Haddad, Executive Director and Public Relations Officer (respectively) with the Union of Relief and Development Associations (URDA), a Lebanese NGO; Loujine Fattal, Empowered Aid Lebanon Research Manager with CARE in Lebanon; and Alina Potts, Empowered Aid Primary Investigator, of GWI. They reflect on localization in humanitarian research and knowledge generation processes during the COVID-19 pandemic, using our Empowered Aid work in Lebanon as a case study. This article was also an opportunity to support local partners in publishing for the first time, as lead authors--an important aspect of centering local knowledge and decolonising research processes.