Project profile — Dou Touloma - Woman Pillar of the Family

• Mali (100.00%)

• Government And Civil Society, General: Women's rights organisations and movements, and government institutions (15170) (20.00%)
• Agricultural development:
Agricultural development (31120) (39.00%)
Agricultural co-operatives (31194) (41.00%)

• Gender equality (principal objective)
• Environmental sustainability (cross-cutting) (significant objective)
• Participatory development and good governance (significant objective)
• Trade development (not targeted)
• Biodiversity (not targeted)
• Climate change mitigation (not targeted)
• Climate Change Adaptation (significant objective)
• Urban issues (not targeted)
• Desertification (not targeted)
• Children's issues (not targeted)
• Youth Issues (not targeted)
• Disaster Risk Reduction(DRR) (not targeted)
• Disability (not targeted)
• Indigenous Issues (not targeted)
• Nutrition (not targeted)
• ICT as a tool for development (not targeted)

This project seeks to enhance the well-being and socio-economic empowerment of women farmers in the Koulikoro, Mopti, Ségou and Sikasso regions of Mali. Project activities include: (1) training women farmers on climate-smart agricultural processing and production, leadership, association-based entrepreneurship, and their fundamental rights, including the right to land; (2) integrating women farmers into existing literacy and financial literacy initiatives; (3) providing positive masculinity training to men and traditional leaders, including youths; (4) providing elected officials from cooperatives and agricultural unions with training on inclusive governance and financial management practices, as well as on gender equality; (5) providing cooperatives and unions with support to develop business models and fund agricultural projects that promote climate change adaptation in predominantly female value chains; (6) providing regional women’s organizations with support to advocate for women’s economic rights among officials and conduct awareness campaigns; and (7) building the operational capacity of the Fédération nationale des femmes rurales. This project is being implemented by the Alliance agricole internationale, a platform for agricultural engagement and action formed by the Société de coopération pour le développement international (SOCODEVI), the Centre d’étude et de coopération internationale (CECI) and the Union des producteurs agricoles - Développement international (UPA-DI).

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) women farmers have an enhanced capacity to access, use, manage and control the economic and productive resources of their agricultural business in a climate change context; (2) predominantly female agricultural cooperatives and their unions enjoy more inclusive governance and a range of products and services that are better adapted to the specific needs of women farmers and environmental challenges; and (3) the capacities of regional associations and the Fédération nationale des femmes rurales are enhanced so that women farmers are more empowered and can exercise their social and economic rights.

Results achieved as of March 2024: (1) trained 493 elected representatives of grassroots women's cooperatives and their unions (GWCU), and up-and-coming young people (including 385 women and 38% young people) on gender equality issues, particularly on the effective participation of women in decision-making bodies; (2) enabled GWCUs to improve their ability to offer accessible products and services tailored to the specific needs of women farmers. This concerns access to markets, technical and economic support to GWCUs on the development of profitable business models that meet the economic needs of their members, in connection with adaptation to climate change; (3) 85% of trained women (492 out of 579) apply environmentally friendly and climate-smart production and processing practices; and (4) supported 3 rural women's professional associations (“ASPROFER”) at the regional level, in the delivery of improved advocacy programs to decision-makers and potential allies on themes relating to secured access to land, agricultural inputs and equipment and to the market. These results notably contributed to more inclusive governance of GWCU and to strengthening women famers’ access and control of economic and productive resources in the context of climate change.

• Proactive disclosure