The GROWING project seeks to provide support for women farmers in selected food value chains through the provision of climate-resilient seeds and climate-smart farming techniques, as well as means of assessing the market. The project aims to improve the nutritional health of women and young children by identifying the key macronutrients that are missing in existing diets and innovative ways of getting the most out of crops. The project will be implemented in six districts/municipal areas within the Northern, North East, and Savannah Regions. The project is expected to, by the end of its implementation, ensure that at least 40,000 urban consumers have access to nutritious food promoted by GROWING.

DURATION: Five years

TARGET: 

• Pregnant women
• Lactating mother with children under the age of five.

DONOR

Global Affairs Canada

IMPLEMENTERS

CARE International

CIP International Potato Centre

IMPLEMENTING PARTNERS; 

1. Ghana Health Service (GHS)
2. Women in Agriculture Ghana (WIAD) 
3. Local Non-Government Organisations

• URBANET Ghana
• Sung Foundation 
• RAINS
• Department of Agriculture and Agricultural Extension  

The WISE project is a four-year project implemented by Plan International Ghana, URBANET and WIDO as well as private sector stakeholders. The project seeks to enhance economic empowerment, well-being and inclusive economic growth for women in Ghana.

The WISE Project will focus on setting up and expanding both micro and small-enterprises led by women; it will aim to attract private sector partners to support climate-smart agriculture and green business opportunities, while reducing environmental impacts and addressing climate stresses. At the core, this integrated package of interventions – from foundational life skills and financial education to technical and entrepreneurship support while addressing gender inequalities at the household, community and institutional levels – will create a gender-responsive ecosystem for the meaningful economic engagement of Ghanaian women to improve not only their condition but also their position as economic actors.

Taking a highly participatory and local approach, the project will ‘crowd-in’ existing service providers and stakeholders through an inclusive, innovative and gender-transformative hub model. The project strategically opted to support women-owned businesses to leverage the presence of an existing large number of women entrepreneurs in Ghana.

In parallel to developing a suite of women-friendly business services, the Project will tackle the local root causes of gender inequalities to empower women entrepreneurs by engaging men. This entails identifying, sensitizing and training male champions to promote gender equality among male family members of the target women entrepreneurs. Male champions will promote positive masculinities, social aversion among men to practices of SGBV and CEFM, sharing of responsibilities at the household level, and engagement of women in family and community-level decision making.

Project Goal: Increased realization of rights to economic empowerment, well-being and inclusive economic growth for women in five districts within Northern, Bono, Bono East and Ahafo regions in Ghana

Two intermediate outcomes will contribute to achieving the ultimate goal:

• Improved women’s agency to exercise decisions regarding their participation in economic growth
• Increased productivity, profitability and innovation of women-owned businesses

Target: In total, 12,641 women (aged 19 – 55) will directly benefit, with 4,046 of those women receiving targeted support for agricultural and green businesses.

Duration of Project: January 2020 – June 2024.

Donor: Global Affairs Canada (GAC)

URBANET receives funds from EMpower, the Emerging Markets Foundation, to support the development of programs that empower youth with skills training and development, particularly young girls. EMpower is a USA-based charity organization that focuses on supporting youth in emerging market countries through partnerships and grants given to local organizations. The goals of EMpower align with the focus of URBANET, which is to address the needs of Ghana’s expanding youth population, who often have few skills and livelihood opportunities.

URBANET’s relationship with EMpower focuses on a diverse portfolio of projects, which enables the organization to meet the various needs of youth in northern Ghana. This includes programs to train young people, especially women, in shea butter processing, as community livestock workers, and as seed producers. These projects simultaneously address the critical need for youth skills training and employment while also providing in-demand goods and services. Quality seeds, for example, are a sought-after product in the Northern Region, as are Community Livestock Workers, who bridge the gap between the hugely understaffed veterinary services and smallholder farmers. As well, the shea butter value chain represents a lucrative and growing employment opportunity.

URBANET’s relationship with Empower also recognizes the widespread challenges faced by youth, particularly young girls, beyond simply a lack of employment. To this end, the organization addresses these challenges through complementary training in reproductive health, gender issues, business and entrepreneurship, and information communication. Overall, through funding from EMpower, URBANET aims to increase youth livelihoods through capacity and skills development, which is gradually increasing employment opportunities as well as encouraging youth to re-enter education and start their businesses.

Donor: EMPower

URBANET established a micro-finance and livelihood security programme dubbed: livelihood empowerment credit scheme in 2007 with funding support by ActionAid Ghana in the northern region of Ghana to help address the gap of inadequate access by the poor but economically active groups especially women and youth in the region.

Goal
The aim is to improve on income and livelihood security of the poor but economically active groups of people in the region especially women and youth.

Objectives
1. To provide micro credit to small and micro business ventures in the region
2. To stimulate small enterprise development and create jobs for the youth
3. To provide entrepreneurship training for small scale entrepreneurs to enhance their growth and development
4. To inculcate the habit of savings in all our clients