Gender & Social Enterprise for Peace

Authors: Monica Geary

Publication Date: April 2018

Contents: Evidence suggests that including women in peacebuilding improves efforts to reduce conflict and encourage peace. Similarly, evidence shows that supporting women entrepreneurs has a positive effect on economic growth. Recently, new peacebuilding practices involving social entrepreneurship have come to light, but like other methods for peace, they are not yet gender-inclusive.

As of now, few peacebuilding organizations are actively pursuing the social enterprise model as a methodology for creating peace. The goal of this paper is to illuminate existing peace and gender-based social enterprise efforts, advocate for social enterprise as a powerful peacebuilding tool, and elucidate how gender-focused social entrepreneurship can contribute to peace. Additionally, this paper will provide recommendations for including women in social entrepreneurship programs as a tool for peacebuilding.