From Recipients to Drivers — A Reflection on POWER, Trauma-Informed Business Models, and Real Inclusion for Women IDPs

From Recipients to Drivers — A Reflection on POWER, Trauma-Informed Business Models, and Real Inclusion for Women IDPs

By Evelyn Ugbe

Executive Director, Centre for Redefining Alternative Civic Engagement for Africa (RACE)

We have all seen the familiar images: rows of women learning tailoring, mixing soap, weaving baskets. These projects are presented as solutions  immediate, visible, and compassionate. Yet the statistics stubbornly persist: many women in IDP camps remain trapped in poverty. This paradox forces us to ask hard questions: Are we treating symptoms or transforming systems? Are we preparing women to be micro-entrepreneurs for survival, or enabling them to be market actors, employers, and decision-makers who shape local economies?

The POWER (Promoting Women’s Economic Resilience) project  and the TAHAV model specifically is our answer to those questions. But the lessons we are learning go beyond what a single program can deliver. They point to a shift in perspective that must happen across the humanitarian-development ecosystem.

1) Poverty among women IDPs is not a failure of training alone it is a failure of systems

Short-term vocational skills remain essential. But skills alone cannot overcome structural exclusion. Markets, procurement systems, social protection registries, and development finance rarely recognise displaced women as economic actors. Too often, women IDPs are framed as recipients of aid rather than producers of value. If government registries, cash-transfer schemes, export promotion programs, and market actors do not intentionally include them, the training becomes a temporary relief rather than a pathway to sustainable livelihoods.

2) Trauma shapes economic behaviour so business models must be trauma-informed

Displacement shatters more than incomes; it fractures mental, physical and social wellbeing. Trauma affects decision-making, risk tolerance, time horizons, interpersonal trust, and the capacity to plan. That’s why POWER deliberately links vocational and business training with Safe Spaces, GBV referral services, and psychosocial support. A trauma-informed business model recognises:
- The need for flexible timelines and pacing in training and credit repayment;
- Group-based approaches that rebuild trust and social capital as assets for cooperative enterprises;
- Mental health and legal support as core business enablers, not optional add-ons;
- Product development and market-entry strategies that account for fluctuating productivity and seasonal stresses.

When trauma hits, incomes, productivity and enterprise growth do not simply pause  they can collapse. Designing businesses that absorb shocks (through cooperatives, shared assets, contingency funds, diversified income streams) preserves gains and prevents retraumatization.

3) NGOs are  conveners but they cannot be the sole business drivers

NGOs understand community, protection and empowerment. Most are not, and should not be expected to be, long-term business incubators. Running viable enterprises at scale requires market intelligence, supply-chain know-how, quality control for export standards, and access to capital skills and networks typically found in the private sector and specialized business development organizations. Effective models therefore pair NGO-led social interventions with business experts, export promotion bodies, private buyers, and financial institutions. POWER’s partnership with the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) and our engagement with business mentors show what this collaboration can unlock: product improvement, market diversification and pathways to scale.

4) Vocational training and business management are necessary starts but they must be combined with systemic inclusion

Training and cooperative formation are foundational. From there, deliberate inclusion in state and federal social protection programmes is the scaling mechanism. Government ownership matters: when the State Cash Transfer Unit agrees to include TAHAV members in social protection databases, when the Benue Bureau of Statistics registers them for state-based registries, we move from pilot to permanence. Inclusion institutionalizes access to credit, social insurance, livelihoods support and market linkages. It also signals to the private sector that these women are legitimate economic partners.

5) Measurement and investment must look beyond outputs to resilience and agency

Donors and implementers must measure more than numbers trained or kits distributed. We need longitudinal indicators of resilience: enterprise survival and growth, diversification of income, inclusion in public registries, access to formal financial services, leadership roles in community governance, and sustained reductions in GBV incidence. Investment should follow those indicators patient capital, market-building grants, technical assistance for quality assurance and export readiness, and investments in data systems that keep IDP women visible to policymakers.

From a model to a movement

TAHAV is more than a project; it is a test-case for a different approach one that centers trauma-informed business design, integrates protection with production, and insists on government and market systems making space for displaced women as economic actors. For this to scale, NGOs must deepen partnerships with business experts, governments must formalize inclusion, and donors must fund the patient, systemic work that transforms pilots into public goods.

We owe more than temporary relief to the 500,000+ women and girls still living in camps across Benue. We owe them investment that recognizes their agency, systems that include them, and businesses designed to withstand the shocks of trauma. If we get this right, these women will stop being counted only as recipients of aid and will start being counted among the drivers of our economy.

Evelyn Ugbe
Executive Director, RACE