“Is what we are doing really making a difference in women’s lives?”

This is a question UN Women’s Safia Elamin regularly asks herself. Elamin works on humanitarian response, supporting survivors of violence in her home country Sudan, which erupted into civil war in April 2023. 

It is a simple question, but for humanitarian workers operating in some of the world’s most difficult emergencies, the answer is not so straightforward.

UN Women staff are working with communities affected by conflict, displacement, disasters, and insecurity. They serve women who have survived violence, lost their homes, livelihoods, and loved ones. They work with limited resources, make decisions under pressure and, sometimes, experience the same atrocities and crises as the people they are there to support.

In Lebanon, UN Women’s Nour Abdul Reda describes what she calls the “numbers trap” – while the number of people in need and served is critical data for humanitarian action, she has to remind herself that “these are not numbers; these are women, these are their stories, this is what resilience looks like.”

Reda knows this distinction personally. In early March 2026, Reda was woken in the middle of the night by the sound of bombing nearby. She packed a small bag and carried her one-month-old nephew to safety as her sister gathered her other children. Hours later, she was at work, helping coordinate the humanitarian response for people who, like her, had been forced to flee their homes.

“I cannot remember everything that was said in those meetings”, says Reda, “but I will never forget carrying my one-month-old nephew to safety a few hours before discussing how to support thousands of families trying to do the very same thing.”

“Humanitarian work is about standing with communities in their most difficult moments – even when you are experiencing the same crisis yourself”, explains Rebecca, who works with UN Women in Myanmar and found herself simultaneously responding to a crisis while experiencing it herself.

After a catastrophic earthquake struck Mandalay – Rebecca’s hometown – in March 2025, she was deployed to respond. Her home was damaged and her family was affected. At the same time, Rebecca was responsible for supporting the emergency response.

Day in and day out, she went from coordination meetings to affected communities, listening to the experiences of women and girls and gathering information about their needs. At night, Rebecca put together what she had seen and heard so that humanitarian actors could respond more effectively.

Rebecca describes the toll it took on her: “By the end of each day, my whole body was exhausted, but despite how tired I was, I often couldn’t sleep. The stories I had heard and the devastation I had witnessed stayed with me. Knowing that the information we gathered would help humanitarian actors better understand the needs of affected communities gave me the strength to keep going.”

“It was one of the most challenging experiences of my life”, says Rebecca, “but it was also one of the most meaningful.”

For UN Women staff working on humanitarian response, one of the hardest realities is seeing how much people need – and knowing that there are not enough resources to meet those needs.

In Afghanistan, a constant stream of emergencies from flash floods to earthquakes to cross-border hostilities, in a context where women’s rights are increasingly restricted, have created a deeply challenging operating environment.

Following a magnitude 6.0 earthquake in Kunar province in September 2025, Araya Arayawuth, Head of Jalalabad Sub-Office for UN Women Afghanistan, and her colleagues travelled into a remote mountainous valley on foot to meet affected communities after they were forced to abandon their cars.

“The valley is remote and mountainous”, describes Arayawuth. “We had to navigate a tight, unpaved road. After a while we were no longer able to move forward by car. The mission team left our convoy to trek on foot to meet with affected families. We crossed rivers, hiked through cornfields, jumped over rubble, all while facing aftershocks every 20 minutes that echoed like thunder. After a few hours, we finally reached a community of women taking shelter under a makeshift tent who had lost everything and had been in search for assistance for two days. This broke my heart.”

“The hardest part [for me…] is the emotional pain”, says Arayawuth, “especially when meeting affected women and girls who are suffering, and knowing that we can only do so much to help with limited resources.” But what Arayawuth sees in the women and girls she serves is “resilience, strength, and optimism”, which inspires her to do better and do more.

In Sudan, Elamin’s fight for gender equality is driven by the injustice she has witnessed around her. She remembers a woman who worked alongside her husband on a farm. When the harvest came, her husband sold the produce and controlled the income. For Elamin, that story showed the tangible, ground reality of gender inequality: She had helped produce the harvest but had no say over what happened to the money made from it.

Elamin explains how the war has deepened existing inequalities while simultaneously shifted responsibilities – with women carrying an even greater share of work than before. “Many women suddenly became responsible for entire households. Their usual family and social support were no longer there, but their children still needed food, education, and care.”

In the Central African Republic, UN Women’s Ulrich Martial Bienvenu Sandy describes the women he serves as “farmers, entrepreneurs, mothers, mediators, peacemakers, human rights defenders, leaders, and innovators.” Sandy’s commitment to women’s empowerment is grounded in the memory of his late mother, who sacrificed her own career aspirations and personal needs for her family.

“Many women lead, produce, mediate, and rebuild, but institutions and systems do not always recognize their contribution. This gap between women’s true contribution and their limited recognition is one of the most challenging realities of this work”, he says.

Sandy’s personal experience of loss did not end there. A few months ago, he lost his wife, who died while giving birth. The experience, he says, made him understand more deeply the realities faced by the people humanitarian workers are trying to support. “For me, every empowered woman is a tribute to the memory of my mother and, today, my late wife”, he says. “Every life transformed reminds me that their sacrifices were not in vain.”

In Ukraine, women are central to the country’s recovery – and coping with the full-scale war. Women are entering professions once considered traditionally male dominated, including humanitarian mine action, working as deminers, team leaders, and technical experts.

Through the UN Women “She Demines” programme, women are gaining skills and new career opportunities while helping communities become safer. UN Women’s Olha Lishyk, a Programme Analyst on Gender in Humanitarian Mine Action who leads this work, explains how expanding women’s participation is not only about equality, but making humanitarian mine action more effective and ensuring that the skills of everyone are recognized.

Lishyk lost her home following Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. “My work is more than just a profession to me”, says Lishyk. “It is an opportunity to help people return to safety and rebuild their lives.”

From Ukraine to Sudan, Central African Republic, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Myanmar, and everywhere else, UN Women’s humanitarian workers share a similar sentiment about the impact of their work.

“You may think you are supporting one woman, but the impact does not necessarily stop with her. It can reach her children, her family, and other women around her. Those are the moments that make the difficult days worthwhile”, says Elamin. 

Change can happen – but it happens beyond the numbers, targets, and immediate results that humanitarian systems measure. It happens through each and every woman and girl that UN Women supports in humanitarian crisis – as they flee, rebuild, recover, negotiate peace, seek power, support their families and communities, and stand tall with dignity.