Rising Beyond Ditwah - Supporting 250 women led MSMEs

Heavy rainfall and Cyclone Ditwah triggered deadly floods and landslides across Asia this month, killing over 1,100 people and leaving hundreds missing and millions displaced. According to the Sri Lanka Disaster Management Centre (DMC), by December 03 evening over 820 people were listed as dead and missing, with about 2 million people - or nearly one in ten Sri Lankans - impacted by the cyclone. 114,000 people are living in temporary shelters after nearly 74,000 homes were damaged according to the DMC.Situation reports from DMC

Cyclone Ditwah has caused massive destruction and is the latest in a series of extreme weather events in the region. It is Sri Lanka’s worst disaster with the economic impact much higher than that of the 2004 tsunami - and, as often is the case, women, children and small and micro businesses are disproportionately impacted. The true scale of this crisis is likely to grow as more bodies are unearthed from homes buried under mud, bridges rebuilt to access whole communities that have lost their homes and have been without food for days, roads that were washed away are cleared and made temporarily motorable to transport shelter, rations and essential medicines and more areas are reached and cared for.

Women-led micro and small enterprises are the backbone of Sri Lanka’s informal economy. In the aftermath of Cyclone Ditwah, they face disproportionate livelihood losses and barriers to capital, yet they are also central to household recovery, food security, and community resilience. Targeted support to women entrepreneurs not only accelerates economic recovery but reduces vulnerability, enhances social stability, and ensures a more inclusive and climate-resilient reconstruction process.

Women-Led small and micro enterprises (M/SMEs) should be prioritised in post-Ditwah recovery. It is not only socially just, it is strategically smart for driving faster, more resilient, and more inclusive recovery across Sri Lanka. Women’s microbusinesses often restart earlier if they receive even small support. Every rupee invested in a woman’s enterprise tends to flow directly into food, children’s needs, medicine, and schooling, accelerating household-level recovery.

Women-owned businesses typically operate with lower cash reserves, have less access to formal credit, have fewer assets in their own names to use as collateral, are more likely to have lost equipment, stock, or home-based workspaces due to flooding. Without targeted support, these enterprises are at risk of permanent closure, pushing entire families deeper into poverty.

In Sri Lanka, women dominate many parts of the informal food economy such as food stalls and cooked food, home-based food production, smallholder agriculture and home gardens, poultry, dairy and value-added processing. Supporting them helps restore food availability, stabilise local markets, and reduce post-disaster price inflation.

Additionally Women-led SMEs are proven to reinvest in community resilience. Studies (including UN Women, ILO, UNDP post-disaster assessments globally) show that women entrepreneurs often adopt more diversified and risk-aware livelihoods, invest in savings groups (Seettu system) and support community-based recovery efforts (childcare, shared labour, neighbourhood psycho social support). Strengthening their enterprises therefore strengthens community-level resilience mechanisms.

Humanitarian assistance may take time to reach every community that is affected in Sri Lanka. Women-led micro-businesses provide informal credit or small quantities on trust to neighbours. They will also deliver essential services (food, tailoring, repairs, home care, household cleaning). Additionally they will keep informal markets functioning, which is vital during crisis periods. If they collapse, the local economy collapses.

Many women's businesses are also care related which is key to recovery. Childcare centres, eldercare, nutrition-based enterprises, and women-led CSOs/collectives often provide social infrastructure that helps others return to work. Rebuilding these services will accelerate workforce re-entry, school attendance, and psychosocial recovery for children and families.

Community Development Services (CDS) aims to provide early recovery support to 250 women-led MSMEs in 3 of the most affected districts. Our Immediate support package would include cash-for-recovery grants (LKR 50,000–150,000 (USD 164 - 492) tiered) per micro enterprise, replacing damaged equipment (sewing machines, fridges, stoves, tools, cooking and baking equipment and market re-entry kits (materials, packaging, stock).

Our medium term support package will include zero-interest micro-loans with grace periods, business restarting incubators at district level, support to restart supply chains (transport, storage, raw materials) and shared workspaces for home-based entrepreneurs who lost premises.

With enhanced funding CDS will aim to provide long-term resilience support to these women-led MSMEs by providing digital and financial literacy, scaling up strategies, climate-resilient production and storage solutions and linking women entrepreneurs to procurement opportunities (schools, hospitals, cooperatives, other businesses, wholesalers).

We need 250 benevolent donors to invest USD 455 in each woman owned micro or small enterprise to help her rebuild and rise with her family and community to become a resilient business. She will be buttressed to guide her family out of a poverty ridden existence, able to nourish her children and send them back to school. Her restart and progress will be tracked, monitored and shared with each donor.