Women for Women International Country Directors Hold Congressional Briefings on Poverty, Hunger, Investment in Women Globally

Women for Women International Country Directors, and members of staff pose for a photograph on Capitol Hill.

Washington DC, February 2009 - On February 3rd Women for Women International's Africa country directors briefed House Foreign Affairs Committee staff on program efforts to combat pervasive rural poverty and the global food crisis by training socially-excluded women in Africa on profitable, market-based farming techniques.  As development policy begins to refocus its attention on agriculture, Women for Women practitioners attested to the importance of community-level development practices that empower women.

In Rwanda and Sudan, two countries where many are eating one meal per day or less, Women for Women is piloting a Commercial Integrated Farming Initiative that will link 6,000 women farmers to profitable markets so that they might feed their families and communities and earn an income.  “Sudan lacks everything,” said country director Karak Mayik, “food especially.  Food is another war for us.  It is my hope that with CIFI we can go from dependence on food aid to having food to share.” 

The state ministries for finance and agriculture pledged to drill three new boreholes on the farming land and a motor cycle to the Women for Women country office. The commissioner of Rumbek will provide three cooperative shops.

Women for Women International's Africa country directors briefed House Foreign Affairs Committee staff on program efforts to combat pervasive rural poverty and the global food crisis.

In Nigeria, Women for Women International is empowering women farmers by helping to register and equip cooperatives, including a recent launch of a rice mill benefiting over 600 graduates who can now grow, harvest and process rice for market.  In the Democratic Republic of Congo, conflict has caused massive displacement and an inability to harvest, rendering the food crisis all the more acute. 

Country director Christine Karumba said, “The women fear to go to farm because they may be raped.  If they do farm, they lack technical assistance and good crops.  This is why we hope to bring CIFI to the DRC.  Once the war stops, development can start.”  

Briefing Senate Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee staff on February 9th, Women for Women directors from Afghanistan, Kosovo and Rwanda attested to shared experiences of women survivors of war globally and of the opportunity to build peaceful, stable societies by investing in women. 

A round table discussion at the House Foreign Affairs Committee staff.

Sweeta Noori pointed to a record of success in Afghanistan, where more than 25,000 women have been served through core program and microcredit opportunities, including a recent pilot that will train 300 women in greenhouse cucumber cultivation that helps fight the food shortage faced there.

 “Women in Afghanistan have no voice—often poppy farmers sell their daughters to pay off debt.  But agriculture can be a socially acceptable sector for women in Afghanistan.  Once women are economically empowered, they can use their voice to speak for themselves.”

Echoing the importance of women’s economic empowerment, Hamide Latifi underscored the value of cooperation in Kosovo, where participants trained in woodworking can partner with participants trained in bee-keeping to produce wood hives in a value chain that empowers many.  Berra Kabarungi highlighted the cost-efficiency of investment in women in Rwanda, where 3,000 women will be trained in commercial farming for a mere $300 per woman in a project that plans to render 70% of participants self-employed by 2010. 

As 15 years of experience has shown, when women earn an income the ripple effect extends to affect their families, communities and nations.  In Afghanistan, 57% of participants were sending a girl child to school that was not attending school before her mother’s enrollment.  Investing in women is an affordable tactic by which the United States and other donors can address global poverty, instability and the global food crisis.

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