Harnessing women’s participation in post conflict economic recovery can yield positive results.313 Extreme post conflict socio-economic hardships can propel women into new terrain and to acquire regenerative attitudes, but this requires government to play a strong leadership and facilitatory role. In Rwanda for example, women took on new roles in constructing houses after the conflict314 and became heads of households and primary agricultural producers, with increased responsibility for livelihoods.315 This prompted the government of Rwanda to support women’s economic productivity. Channelling efforts through traditionally male economic domains in projects like “Cows of Peace” in 2001, government helped boost livelihoods of widows of genocide, spouses of incarcerated genocide suspects and demobilised soldiers.316 In recovery processes, government’s capacities to plan extensively for women and men can be constrained by lack of data, personnel and resources, leaving women to fend for themselves in highly constrained socio-economic contexts. Article 14 of CEDAW calls attention to the specific challenges that rural women face vis a visa their significant role in the economic survival of their families. Rural women tend to form the bulk of citizens living below the poverty headcount and conflict affects the capacity of governments to implement the required government interventions for them to break out of multidimensional poverty. Various countries have put in place programmes and funds to facilitate rural women’s development with mixed results. Unless governments can transition from war economies to build robust rural development programmes, women will remain locked in poverty. Women who become heads of households as a result of conflict related widowhood or separation find themselves saddled with high dependency ratios of dependence which places burdens on them as economic providers and primary care givers. After the war, the dependency ratio in Uganda for districts under the peace, development and recovery programme was at 112.7 in the severely affected areas compared to the rest of the country at 92.5. Women who take on breadwinning roles in the absence of their male partners risk offending patriarchal norms and may incur the wrath of male 313 Luchsinger, Gretchen, ed., Power, Voice and Rights: A Turning Point for Gender Equality in Asia and the Pacific, United Nations Development Programme, 2010. 314 The National Unity and Reconciliation Commission ��The Role of Women in Reconciliation and Peace Building in Rwanda: Ten Years After Genocide 1994-2004 315 Hamilton, Heather. “Rwanda’s Women: The Key to Reconciliation.” Journal of Humanitarian Assistance, 2000 316 The National Unity and Reconciliation Commission ‘The Role of Women in Reconciliation and Peace Building in Rwanda: Ten Years After Genocide 1994-2004 101