FAO project to support women’s cooperatives

In its Saturday’s issue, Al Akhbar daily shed light on ‘Rural Women Pioneers’ project by FAO, in cooperation with the ministry of agriculture and funding by the Canadian Government (USD 5 million). Al Akhbar wrote that the primary objective of the 3-year project is to create an enabling social and cultural environment for the economic empowerment of women. The implementation of the project will reportedly contribute to increasing the participation of women-led associations and coops in the local and rural economies and to setting up or expanding income-generating food enterprises. According to Al Akhbar, 150 out of 250 women agricultural cooperatives and associations will be selected based on specific criteria. Supposedly, around 150 of these coops in Lebanon shall receive a USD 5 million grant. According to the project, cooperatives or women associations will benefit from the capacity building and technical support, which will lead to the restructuring of the cooperative sector, while reviving existing cooperatives and associations or developing new ones. In addition, after three years of training, selected cooperatives and associations will receive a grant of $ 8,000 each and a work vouchers for refugees (working Syrian refugees women). At the end, the newspaper criticized the project, noting that in practice, nearly 76% of the grant will be used up for salaries, training, travel and operating expenses over the three-year period. The remaining amount of the coops’ share (intended for employing Syrian women refugees), shall not ultimately exceed USD 8,000 for each by the end of the project. (For more, kindly refer to the link below: https://bit.ly/2I6L4gQ
Al Akhbar, June 8, 2019