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Human-Centered Recovery: Why Feminist Approaches Matter in Post-War Reconstruction

Post-conflict recovery is not just about rebuilding roads and banks. It’s about restoring care, trust, and everyday life. This blog explores why feminist, community-led approaches are essential for post-war reconstruction. Drawing on insights from Ukraine and past failures in Iraq, Bosnia, and Afghanistan, it shows how centring care and local voices can lead to lasting peace and resilience.

A graphic shows the text: Care is not just an emotion or moral duty—it is labor, often unpaid, invisible, and unequally distributed. Below are wooden figures, stacks of coins, and tents on a textured blue background.
Image credit: WILPF
  • 4 min
Nina Potarska
31 July 2025

War does not only destroy buildings and infrastructure. It tears apart the everyday fabric of life: relationships, trust, access to clean water and food, healthcare, and a sense of safety. It poisons the air, leaves land scattered with mines and shells, and makes the ordinary unliveable. And yet, people go on surviving. These survival strategies—based on care, mutual aid, and the daily work of sustaining life—offer a roadmap for what post-war recovery should look like.

Care, Survival, Everyday Life, and Violence

The Caring to Survive, Surviving to Care project explores how care, survival, violence, and everyday life intersect during wartime. Drawing on feminist methodology, we treat care not as a secondary or private sphere, but as the core of social reproduction and societal resilience. Care is not just an emotion or moral duty—it is labor, often unpaid, invisible, and unequally distributed.

Interviews from Kharkiv and Lviv regions show that it is through care—within families, neighborhoods, and communities—that people rebuild what has been broken. Women feed elderly neighbors, protect children and support one another in the face of intensified inequality and absent institutions. Teachers and social workers implement strategies to protect children and the elderly from the stress and psychological wounds of war. LGBTQI+ organizations become hubs where people of all gender identities and sexual orientations can look for help – whether they are displaced, struggling with mental health during war, or wanting to support others in their community through organized volunteering.

Why Talk About Recovery Now?

Despite ongoing destruction, it is crucial to discuss the future—to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. In the context of war and post-conflict recovery, frameworks like “Build Back Better,” originally developed to respond to natural disasters, have often been misapplied. These models tend to emphasize neoliberal, profit-driven, and externally imposed solutions that ignore the divisions and inequalities created by war, as well as the care and social reproduction necessary to heal communities.

The problem with such approaches is that they prioritize economic growth, infrastructure, and market liberalization over the social fabric, care work, and local knowledge that sustain communities during crises. Examples from Iraq, Bosnia, and Afghanistan highlight these risks:

  • In Iraq, after 2003, reconstruction focused on oil, infrastructure, and foreign investment, which led to the wealth of the country being controlled by international corporations and elites, while the majority of the population was excluded from resource management. This approach deepened distrust, social division, and inequality, especially among ethnic and religious groups, undermining long-term stability and trust in state institutions.
  • In Bosnia, following the 1992–1995 war, international organizations and reform programs implemented economic liberalization, privatization, and institutional reforms. However, these measures often ignored complex ethnic and social dynamics, resulting in increased division, unemployment, poverty, and a lack of trust in government institutions. This hampered recovery efforts and fueled new conflicts.
  • In Afghanistan, externally imposed economic reforms and rapid market liberalization failed to consider the country’s cultural, social, and regional realities. As a result, many programs proved ineffective, leaving the population vulnerable to dependency on humanitarian aid and international organizations. This deepened marginalization and internal divisions, hindering the development of sustainable, inclusive institutions.

Reports from WILPF, such as “Post-Conflict Economic Reform”, emphasize that external, cookie-cutter models tend to undermine local agency and fail to address the root causes of inequality and social disintegration. Instead of supporting community-based recovery, these approaches often entrench neoliberal policies that neglect the needs of marginalized groups and the care work vital for genuine resilience and healing.

Main takeaway: The risks of externally driven, neoliberal, and standardized models of recovery are well-documented. They often exacerbate existing inequalities, weaken social cohesion, and ignore the social reproduction and care that are essential for true recovery and resilience.

What Is Feminist Recovery?

Feminist recovery is not just about women—it’s about centering people, bodies, vulnerability, and daily life. It’s about recognizing care as labor and as the foundation of society. It means evaluating recovery not by economic metrics, but by well-being, equality, and community resilience.

This approach requires:

  • Investment in social infrastructure: healthcare, education, housing, transport.
  • Recognition of care as a political and economic priority.
  • Inclusion of marginalised voices in decision-making.
  • Support for local initiatives, not just top-down mega-projects.

Avoiding Mistakes in Ukraine

To ensure Ukraine’s recovery is successful and sustainable, it is essential to learn from the failures of externally driven, neoliberal, and cookie-cutter models of post-conflict reconstruction observed in Iraq, Bosnia, and Afghanistan. These approaches often neglect the vital importance of social cohesion, local agency, and care work—elements that are crucial for healing communities and building resilience. Instead, Ukraine must develop a recovery framework that prioritizes social infrastructure, recognizes care as a political and economic necessity, and actively involves marginalized voices in decision-making. Supporting local initiatives and community-led projects, rather than merely relying on top-down mega-projects, will help rebuild a more equitable, inclusive, and resilient society. By centering the lived experiences, survival strategies, and social reproduction of those most affected by war, Ukraine can avoid repeating the mistakes of the past and lay the foundation for a just and sustainable future.

This article is part of the “Caring to Survive, Surviving to Care” project implemented by WILPF, the Center for Social and Labor Research, Geneva Graduate Institute and National Karazin University in Kharkiv. The project documents gendered survival strategies, social reproduction, and the risks of neoliberal recovery in Ukraine.

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Nina Potarska

Nina Potarska is a gender expert on peacebuilding and conflict resolution. She has experience managing NGOs and research projects, as well as in research and analysis.

Since 2016, she has been the national coordinator of the International Women’s League for Peace and Freedom in Ukraine. The program’s goals are to increase women’s participation and ensure that gender aspects are taken into account in national and international structures. The main focus is on identifying human rights violations based on gender analysis. As part of her activities, she monitors the needs and observance of the rights of women living near the contact line, gender-based violence and conflict-related violence, gender-inclusive mediation in conflicts, and prepares reports on the observance of women’s rights in the UN system.

Since 2013, she has been the director of the Center for Social and Labor Research, and since 2015, she has been researching topics related to the war in Ukraine. She collects narratives and conducts research on both sides of the contact line.

Matt Mahmoudi

Matt Mahmoudi (he/him) is a lecturer, researcher, and organizer. He’s been leading the “Ban the Scan” campaign, Amnesty International’s research and advocacy efforts on banning facial recognition technologies and exposing their uses against racialized communities, from New York City to the occupied Palestinian territories.

Berit Aasen

Europe Alternate Regional Representative

Berit Aasen is a sociologist by training and has worked at the OsloMet Metropolitan University on Oslo. She has 40 years of experience in research and consultancy in development studies, including women, peace, and security, and in later years in asylum and refugee studies. Berit Aasen joined WILPF Norway five years ago. She is an alternate member of the National Board of WILPF Norway, and representing WILPF Norway in the UN Association of Norway, the Norwegian 1325 network and the Norwegian Women’s Lobby. Berit Aasen has been active in the WILPF European Liaison group and is committed to strengthening WILPF sections and membership both in Europe and relations across continents.

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Melissa Torres

VICE-PRESIDENT

Prior to being elected Vice-President, Melissa Torres was the WILPF US International Board Member from 2015 to 2018. Melissa joined WILPF in 2011 when she was selected as a Delegate to the Commission on the Status of Women as part of the WILPF US’ Practicum in Advocacy Programme at the United Nations, which she later led. She holds a PhD in Social Work and is a professor and Global Health Scholar at Baylor College of Medicine and research lead at BCM Anti-Human Trafficking Program. Of Mexican descent and a native of the US/Mexico border, Melissa is mostly concerned with the protection of displaced Latinxs in the Americas. Her work includes training, research, and service provision with the American Red Cross, the National Human Trafficking Training and Technical Assistance Centre, and refugee resettlement programs in the U.S. Some of her goals as Vice-President are to highlight intersectionality and increase diversity by fostering inclusive spaces for mentorship and leadership. She also contributes to WILPF’s emerging work on the topic of displacement and migration.

Jamila Afghani

VICE-PRESIDENT

Jamila Afghani is the President of WILPF Afghanistan which she started in 2015. She is also an active member and founder of several organisations including the Noor Educational and Capacity Development Organisation (NECDO). Elected in 2018 as South Asia Regional Representative to WILPF’s International Board, WILPF benefits from Jamila’s work experience in education, migration, gender, including gender-based violence and democratic governance in post-conflict and transitional countries.

A woman in a blue, black, and white dress smiles radiantly in front of a leafy green background.

Sylvie Jacqueline Ndongmo

PRESIDENT

Sylvie Jacqueline NDONGMO is a human rights and peace leader with over 27 years experience including ten within WILPF. She has a multi-disciplinary background with a track record of multiple socio-economic development projects implemented to improve policies, practices and peace-oriented actions. Sylvie is the founder of WILPF Cameroon and was the Section’s president until 2022. She co-coordinated the African Working Group before her election as Africa Representative to WILPF’s International Board in 2018. A teacher by profession and an African Union Trainer in peace support operations, Sylvie has extensive experience advocating for the political and social rights of women in Africa and worldwide.

WILPF Afghanistan

In response to the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban and its targeted attacks on civil society members, WILPF Afghanistan issued several statements calling on the international community to stand in solidarity with Afghan people and ensure that their rights be upheld, including access to aid. The Section also published 100 Untold Stories of War and Peace, a compilation of true stories that highlight the effects of war and militarisation on the region. 

IPB Congress Barcelona

WILPF Germany (+Young WILPF network), WILPF Spain and MENA Regional Representative

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Demilitarisation

WILPF uses feminist analysis to argue that militarisation is a counter-productive and ill-conceived response to establishing security in the world. The more society becomes militarised, the more violence and injustice are likely to grow locally and worldwide.

Sixteen states are believed to have supplied weapons to Afghanistan from 2001 to 2020 with the US supplying 74 % of weapons, followed by Russia. Much of this equipment was left behind by the US military and is being used to inflate Taliban’s arsenal. WILPF is calling for better oversight on arms movement, for compensating affected Afghan people and for an end to all militarised systems.

Militarised masculinity

Mobilising men and boys around feminist peace has been one way of deconstructing and redefining masculinities. WILPF shares a feminist analysis on the links between militarism, masculinities, peace and security. We explore opportunities for strengthening activists’ action to build equal partnerships among women and men for gender equality.

WILPF has been working on challenging the prevailing notion of masculinity based on men’s physical and social superiority to, and dominance of, women in Afghanistan. It recognizes that these notions are not representative of all Afghan men, contrary to the publicly prevailing notion.

Feminist peace​

In WILPF’s view, any process towards establishing peace that has not been partly designed by women remains deficient. Beyond bringing perspectives that encapsulate the views of half of the society and unlike the men only designed processes, women’s true and meaningful participation allows the situation to improve.

In Afghanistan, WILPF has been demanding that women occupy the front seats at the negotiating tables. The experience of the past 20 has shown that women’s presence produces more sustainable solutions when they are empowered and enabled to play a role.