On March 22, 2023 at the UN Headquarters in New York City, the first global UN conference on water in 46 years will be held. The conference aims to build new commitments, pledges and actions by Governments and all stakeholders towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6, and water-related targets across all SDGs, in order to move us collectively towards the Water Action Agenda.
Women’s economic empowerment (WEE) is integral to the growth of any economy. However, women entrepreneurs face restrictive social norms, attitudes, and practices that exclude them from fully participating in the economy, including from accessing financial resources.
Agriculture pays the bills in Kenya, supporting 80% of the country’s population. However, small businesses and farmers in Kenya often lack access to the business supports they need to prosper. Without access to technology, agricultural inputs, business services, and finance businesses and farmers in Kenya struggle to get by. Women-led businesses often face even stricter challenges.
MEDA formally launched its Leveraging Equality for Gender Inclusive Economic Development (LEGEND) project with an in-person event held on January 26th, 20223. Over six years, this project will support 250 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), 30,000 small entrepreneurs (SEs), 100 associations, and other business ecosystem actors in nine targeted counties in Kenya’s Lake and Coast regions.
Today, MEDA released its “Maendaleo Sawa” (M-SAWA) project learning series. This learning series contains valuable insights from the M-SAWA project, which ran for seven years in Kenya, concluding in the latter half of 2022.
To better explain MEDA’s transformational journey towards embracing a North-South equilibrium and developing partnerships that are based on delivering systems-level impacts in agri-food systems, Catherine Sobrevega (Country Director, Philippines) and Geoffrey Juma (Country Director, Kenya) sat down with Jessica Villanueva, Senior Director, Technical Areas of Practice to reflect in their own words how their work addresses current trends in international development and contributes to the goals espoused by MEDA’s Strategic Plan.
The two-day MEDA’s Second Chance Success Window project Summit held at the end of July 2022 combined the robust findings, learnings, and recommendations from the Second Chance Success Project. The event brought together investment funds, financial institutions, civil society representatives, business development service providers, and women-owned small and growing businesses from Kenya and Rwanda.
MEDA is pleased to announce the Leveraging Equality for Gender-Inclusive Economic Development (LEGEND) project in Kenya. Building on MEDA’s proven results in Kenya, the LEGEND project will apply Gender Lens Investing expertise to improve the economic prosperity of women, youth, and other underrepresented populations in the country’s aquaculture, horticulture, and poultry sectors.
Women play critical roles in society- they run businesses and farms in addition to performing various domestic care responsibilities. But they often don’t receive credit
Through MEDA’s M-SAWA project, funded by Global Affairs Canada (GAC), TCP is providing 15-20 alternative fuel producer (50% women led) enterprises with training, mentorship, financial support, technical support, online resources, and access to a network of entrepreneurs to generate a positive economic and environmental impact by displacing use of traditional wood charcoal.
Mennonite Economic Development Associates is an international economic development organization that creates business solutions to poverty.
MEDA International is a Canadian non-share capital not-for-profit corporation incorporated under the Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act.
Mennonite Economic Development Associates is a 501(c)(3) status non-profit organization in the United States: EIN 23-7398678.
Mennonite Economic Development Associates of Canada is a registered charity in Canada: No. 107 691 057 RR0001.
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