this requires efforts to push ahead with grassroots economic strategies to empower women on their own or in family units the introduction and support of microcredit programmes for women the promotion of labour land and property rights for women including through legal reform and the integration of women into the transformation and management of postwar security institutions we close with some recommendations for international state and local actors including the united nations regional organizations and bilateral donors but also national governments civil society organizations and national and international research communities women are portrayed in their full complexity not simply as helpless or innocent victims but as both victims and active agents of change the reflections from different parts of the world draw our attention to the differing dynamics of participation as they play out in various local national and international settings