- Country: Yemen (Southern governorates: Aden, Taiz, Hadramout)
- Contact person: Hanin Dabbagh, dabbagh@elbarlament.org
- Project duration: January 2026-August 2026
- Project objective: To strengthen the organisational capacity, agency, and social participation of women’s networks in southern Yemen through a structured mentorship and peer-learning programme.
Development of a mentorship programme for women’s networks in Yemen
Women’s networks in southern Yemen operate in a context marked by prolonged conflict, political fragmentation, shrinking civic space, and significant security and mobility constraints. Despite these challenges, women and women-led networks continue to play vital roles as community organisers, service providers, and mediators. However, their ability to influence decision-making and engage sustainably at district and governorate levels remains limited.
Mapping conducted under the ParticiLogue project highlights persistent capacity gaps across women’s networks — including weaknesses in organisational governance, strategic planning, advocacy, financial management, and inter-network collaboration. These challenges affect both formal and informal networks, albeit in different ways. While informal groups often benefit from community trust and flexibility, formal networks offer structure and visibility but face bureaucratic and political constraints.
Against this backdrop, targeted, context-sensitive capacity development is essential. The Mentorship and Peer Learning Programme was designed as a holistic response that goes beyond stand-alone trainings, combining mentorship, peer exchange, and practical capacity-building to strengthen women’s agency, resilience, and collective action in a fragile environment.
The programme was designed as a continuous learning journey rather than a one-off training. It began with a needs assessment and consultations with women’s organisations and networks in Aden, Taiz and Hadramout, helping to identify the skills, organisational challenges and learning priorities that shaped the programme.
Participants then came together for an initial five-day workshop in Aden, combining practical learning with group discussion and peer exchange. The programme focused on strengthening organisational and institutional capacities, advocacy and communication skills, networking and alliance-building, as well as participants’ ability to support and learn from one another.
Following the workshop, 20 mentor–mentee tandems worked together on individual learning objectives and organisational priorities. Peer-learning spaces and ongoing follow-up allowed participants to exchange experiences, address challenges and adapt what they had learned to their own organisational contexts.
A series of online sessions midway through the programme provided further opportunities for learning and exchange. The programme concluded with a second five-day workshop in Aden, where participants reflected on their experiences, strengthened their skills in project management, monitoring and evaluation, strategic networking and organisational sustainability, and explored ways to continue their peer support beyond the programme.
Throughout the programme, participants were supported by bilingual training and mentoring resources, practical tools and templates designed for continued use within their organisations and networks. The approach aimed to ensure that learning extended beyond the programme itself, strengthening connections between women and networks across the three governorates and supporting their continued participation in community and decision-making processes.
The project is funded by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) 