ABOUT SIHA The Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA) is a civil society coalition that was established in 1995 with the aim of strengthening the capacities of women’s rights organizations and addressing women’s subording of women and girls. SIHA envisions women and girls in the Horn of Africa with the right to live in a peaceful, just environment and the ability to exercise their equal rights as human beings. As a sub-regional network of women’s human rights and gender equality activists, SIHA is in a unique position to move this vision forward as one of very few indigenous coalitions born and nurtured inside the Horn. Strong ties and connections with women and their communities drive SIHA’s work across the region. After more than 20 years of working in conflict and post conflict settings to advance women’s human rights in highly patriarchal contexts frequently characterized by insecurity, SIHA’s expertise is rooted in its familiarity with the sociopolitical situations around the Horn and the grassroots work of its members. SIHA has developed deep and unique expertise in supporting women in the informal economy across the Greater Horn of Africa, to know and claim their economic, social and cultural rights. SIHA utilizes its position as a global actor to advocate for the safety and protection of women working in the informal economy – not limited to women informal cross border traders, street vendors, petty traders, domestic workers. SIHA also focuses its programming and advocacy in favor of women IDPs coming from rural areas, refugees, minority groups and others on the margins of society particularly vulnerable to economic exploitation. SIHA targets the economic empowerment of women informal laborers to bring them out of the margins of employment through skills-building specifically around literacy skills and marketable skills beyond the informal economy. Beyond this, SIHA supports these women to break gender stereotypes in employment options that are typically and primarily available to men. In order to support advocacy and influencing women’s economic empowerment in the Greater Horn, SIHA uses research to emphasize the contribution of women in the informal economy to overall national economies.
SIHA Network
Page 6
