Sabaya is the largest programme implemented by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) in the occupied Palestinian territory. It was initiated in 2004 in cooperation and partnership with the United Nations Development Programme/Programme of Assistance to the Palestinian People (UNDP/PAPP)  With funding from the Government of Japan, the Sabaya programme aims to activate and operationalize women‘s centres that have been constructed or rehabilitated by UNDP in Palestinian rural communities through various activities. UNIFEM has completed the first and second pilot phases of the Sabaya programme in nine rural communities in the West Bank. Since the pilot phase, the programme has been expanded to cover a total of 18 rural communities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.  With additional funding from the Government of Norway, the Sabaya programme has also benefited from targeted humanitarian assistance for Palestinian women.

Sabaya Goal

The programme aims at empowering and protecting rural women, by developing their skills socially, economically, academically and legally, thereby promoting their participation in decision-making within their communities. The programme‘s activities serve four main objectives:

Objective 1: To develop/strengthen women‘s capacity to cope with the direct effects of the current conflict by organizing women‘s groups and networks, and by facilitating their access to services, information and resources;
Objective 2: To develop/strengthen institutional capacities of service providers and women‘s groups to streamline quality services, resources and information;
Objective 3: To raise awareness of women‘s needs and priorities in target communities.
Objective 4: To strengthen women‘s leadership and advocacy skills for gaining access to services, information and resources.


Sabaya philosophy

• Mobilizing existing human resources in rural communities, ensuring that women’s networks are initiated, maintained and/or strengthened, together with the support of the local community at large and local councils in particular;
• Working within the specific context of each target community to ensure responsiveness and benefit;
• Empowering rural women and building their skills in order to enable them to access the resources, services and information that they need to attain economic, social and human security;
• Fostering rural women’s leadership at the community level;
• Overcoming social fragmentation by promoting networking among rural women from different communities;
• Broadening rural women’s horizons in terms of attaining their aspirations and fulfilling their ambitions;
• Increasing awareness and understanding of rural women’s needs;
• Ensuring that rural women have a voice within their communities and beyond, with decision-makers, policy-makers and service providers

Sabaya Target Groups and Areas

The Sabaya programme targets Palestinian women in marginalized rural communities that suffer from limited access to resources and services.  The programme is currently being implemented in 18 rural areas distributed across the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as indicated on the map. (see: Sabaya map)

Our main activities and projects

Based on a needs assessment in each target location, UNIFEM develops a work plan for each of the rural women’s centers, which are then activated through a series of initiatives, which include:

• Equipping and furnishing the women’s centers and developing their  services in their respective communities through Information and Communications Technology (ICT), including basic and advanced computer training, Internet use and web design;

• Educational services: These include a range of educational projects implemented by the centres, including:

• Academic counselling: The aim of this project is to promote education for women and girls and to provide them with the skills and means to complete their education, especially for women who have dropped out of school and female secondary-level high school students. The girls and women are provided with information on higher education choices and possibilities. This project has been implemented in partnership with Sharek Youth Forum
• Support classes: These classes represent a complementary activity to the academic counseling.  These classes, coordinated with the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, also have two target groups.  At one level, they aim at improving school achievement among female school students and promoting retention.  At another level, the classes have targeted female drop-outs who would like to attain Tawjihi (secondary-level) certification.
• Literacy classes: The aim is to improve literacy skills among women who have not had formal education or who have acquired only minimal reading and writing literacy skills.

• Legal literacy including:

• Legal counselling: This project provides women with access to legal counselling services and legal literacy on issues related to women within Palestinian law establishments. The project is implemented in association with the Women‘s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling (WCLAC), through the Women for Life Association and a team of specialized female lawyers.
• Film Outreach: This activity was implemented in partnership with Shashat  with the aim of raising awareness of women’s rights as human rights. A film titled "Divorce, Iranian Style" was screened at all the Sabaya women centers, under the supervision of female lawyers working in the legal counselling initiative in order to discuss legal and rights issues presented in the film.

• Health and psychosocial services, including:

• Psychosocial counselling: Providing women with group and individual counseling. The project is implemented through the Palestinian Counselling Centre (PCC)  and has extended to all the rural communities under the Sabaya programme in the West Bank.  There is coordination between the psychosocial and legal counselling initiatives for the referral of cases.
• Mobile Psychosocial Units: Providing psychological and general health counselling to women and children in marginalized rural areas and refugee camps in the Gaza Strip. The project is implemented in cooperation with the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme  and has incorporated one of the Sabaya centers in the Gaza Strip.

• Capacity building project: This project aims at empowering women and building their managerial, financial and professional capacity through different training and capacity building activities on issues like: communication skills, management of small projects, administrative and financial reporting, teamwork, community mobilization, and others. The project is implemented in cooperation with Ma’an Development Centre.

• Income-generating projects: The programme oversees the development of income-generating projects by the Sabaya centres based on an assessment of the women‘s and the communities‘ needs for economic projects. This includes conducting a feasibility study for each location, taking into consideration each community’s needs, priorities and opportunities.  These projects aim at providing job opportunities for women in rural areas, while ensuring a source of income for the centres that can help sustain their provision of programs and activities for women.

• Recruitment of volunteers:

• UNIFEM, in partnership with the UN Volunteers Programme at UNDP, has recruited 18 female volunteers to work as coordinators for Sabaya centres in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
• In cooperation with Sharek Youth Forum  UNIFEM has employed 15 female researchers through the “A Step Forward” programme and 30 female counsellors to coordinate the activities of the academic counselling programme.