Project profile — Generating Revenue Opportunities for Women and Youth

• Palestine (100.00%)

• Livestock:
Livestock (31163) (10.00%)
Agricultural extension (31166) (15.00%)
Agricultural education/training (31181) (25.00%)
Agricultural services (31191) (20.00%)
Agricultural financial services (31193) (15.00%)
Agricultural co-operatives (31194) (15.00%)

• Gender equality (significant objective)
• Participatory development and good governance (significant objective)
• Youth Issues (significant objective)

This project aims to enhance economic empowerment and increase prosperity for low-income women and youth, particularly female youth, in the West Bank. The project seeks to achieve this by adopting a gender transformative approach to recognise, formalise, and amplify women’s existing roles in the agricultural sector. This focuses on the olive oil and agro-food processing value chains while promoting women’s increased decision-making and control over income, assets and productive resources. Project activities include: (1) conducting policy advocacy initiatives to address policy barriers to women's entrepreneurship; (2) providing entrepreneurship and business management training opportunities for women; (3) supporting access to sustainable financial solutions for women in women-led micro-small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), and agricultural cooperatives; and (4) designing and implementing renewable energy placement programs for women and female youth apprentices or trainees, focusing on students and recent graduates.

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) increased access to a supportive environment for women-led micro-small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), and agricultural cooperatives in the olive oil and agro-food processing value chains; (2) enhanced technical, business and managerial capacity of women-led MSMEs and agricultural cooperatives to successfully establish and grow sustainable businesses in the olive oil and agro-food processing value chains; and (3) increased capacity of female entrepreneurs, particularly female youth, to support the adoption of renewable energy in the olive oil and agro-food processing value chains.

Results achieved at the end of the project (October 2024) include: (1) enhanced economic opportunities for over 4000 women and youth. 86% of targeted women and female youth are employed or self-employed by the project’s end date; (2) 73% of beneficiaries reported at least a 10% annual income increase over the course of the project, with 79% of existing businesses boosting sales by up to 25%; (3) strengthened capacity of 1,237 women in new and existing MSMEs or cooperatives. This helped them to start and grow their business through environmental and gender-responsive entrepreneurship and business development training; and (4) supported 86 youth (70 women and 16 men) to implement renewable energy projects. The project enabled participants to advance economically through entrepreneurship or employment. Also, it helped to improve their financial stability and prosperity. Over 700,000 individuals benefited indirectly from project activities.

• Proactive disclosure