Ongoing violent conflicts accentuate the challenges that women and men face in the rural areas
of Iraq, Lebanon, and the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The potential of cooperatives for sharing
risk, pooling resources, learning together, generating income, and balancing work and family
responsibilities, has yet to be actualized. Cooperatives in the three countries remain marginal,
and often organizations labelled as cooperatives do not adhere by cooperative principles. Since
donor dependency has become pervasive, interventions should focus on skills development for
the sustainability of cooperatives. Training needs adaptation to the local context, and gender
responsiveness is necessary for the success of interventions.