Supporting Women Cooperatives and Associations in the Agro-Food Sector

This project aims to improve the livelihoods of rural Lebanese and Syrian refugee women and contributes to their empowerment through training in business management, communication skills and legal issues related to women’s rights. This project supports women-led cooperatives and associations to establish sustainable income-generating enterprises. It supports an enabling environment for women by reinforcing the capacity of relevant institutions and organisations to provide more equitable services. It also provides training to Ministry of Agriculture staff in mainstreaming gender equality in the development of policies and strategies in the agricultural sector. It empowers women in achieving equal participation in Lebanon’s economy, and improves their access to and control over resources. Project activities include: (1) increasing awareness of the rights and roles of women at the family and community levels, and this among all levels of society in targeted rural areas; (2) increasing the capacity of the General Directorate of Cooperatives (GDC) to improve their management information system for the registration and monitoring of cooperatives, including a data tracking system based on sex disaggregated data; (3) increasing the awareness of the need for more gender-responsive services from government institutions and non-governmental organizations at national and local levels; (4) increasing the knowledge in the development of business plans and technical aspects of small-scale agri-food enterprise development for targeted rural women cooperatives/associations; and (5) increasing the capacity of women cooperatives/associations to improve productivity in local agro-food business ventures. .