Women's economic empowerment

To promote women’s economic empowerment, Solidar Suisse is developing various initiatives, including :

– support for existing local women’s initiatives in promising sectors, accompanied by access to short-term vocational training in the agro-sylvopastoral sector: market gardening, sheep fattening, breeder breeding, organic veterinary treatment, etc.

• development of their entrepreneurial skills: by improving women’s know-how and introducing them to the use of social networks to promote their products. In the medium term, the aim is to increase women’s savings, boost their self-financing capacity and give them better access to decent jobs;
• capacity building in production, processing of local products and management of small economic units;
• easy access to financing without the need for prior collateral, through the creation of village savings and credit associations (VSCAs). In addition, studies on financing opportunities for women have been carried out in various localities, and the results brought to their attention at financing fairs attended by representatives of microfinance institutions (MFIs) and women promoters of promising trades;
• improving women’s access to arable land and their participation in the development of their localities: through their involvement in the creation of production-support infrastructures such as market gardening areas and lowland rice fields;

Setting up a day-care center known as MaBYZ “Ma Baas Yiire Zaka”, which in Mooré means “a place where mothers can be freed from childcare to take part in productive activities”: this approach is implemented when there is a collective activity in a rural environment involving women with at least 10 children. The aim is to enable women to free themselves from childcare so that they can actively participate in income-generating activities (IGA) in the community.