Hand in Hand partners with Cartier Philanthropy on women’s economic empowerment

A new joint-project between Hand in Hand, Cartier Philanthropy and the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) is boosting women’s economic empowerment in Tanzania by involving a group that – on this subject, anyway – almost always goes overlooked: men.

Launched this month, the programme aims to train 600 women to create and manage their own enterprises while changing attitudes that stop them from earning an income in the first place. When the project concludes in 2022, the lessons we learn will feed into a ‘male engagement toolkit’ being developed by ICRW, Cartier Philanthropy and other partners and shared sector-wide. Not only will Hand in Hand’s members benefit, but a potential 10.5 million Self-Help Group members worldwide.

The challenge

Any expert worth their salt will tell you – almost reflexively, at this point – that women are crucial to development. “When you invest in a woman’s empowerment it has a ripple effect, helping families, communities, and countries achieve long-lasting benefits,” says the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Only recently, however, has the sector embraced the idea that in order for women’s economic empowerment to reach its full potential, men will need to buy in.

Tanzania is a perfect case in point. Although women here comprise 52 percent of farmers, they are less than half as likely as men to get paid, according to DFID-funded research group K4D. In fact, says a K4D report, most husbands prefer their wives to do unpaid domestic work than to earn an income outside the home. One result is that few women have bank accounts, collateral or social networks – prerequisites for starting a business.

Poverty in Tanzania is complex and multifactorial. But if women’s fortunes in this country of 57 million are to fully transform, so too must the attitudes that restrict them. So too, in other words, must the attitudes of men.

The project

Hand in Hand’s joint-project with Cartier Philanthropy and ICRW is designed both to help kickstart and learn more about that transformation. By the time the project is complete, 300 women will receive our usual livelihoods training, along with specialised training in women’s economic empowerment. Think lessons about earning and spending their own money.

We’ll also recruit 300 men – those same women’s husbands, fathers and brothers – to undergo livelihoods training of their own. Just like their female counterparts, men will also receive gender-specific training developed in partnership with ICRW. But here, the focus will be squarely on shifting their perceptions about women’s role in income generation – and their own in domestic labour. At the same time, we’ll reach out to the community more broadly, working with grassroots groups and others to shift norms around men’s and women’s roles. And to bolster the reliability of our results, we’ll recruit a comparison group of 300 women who receive livelihoods training only.

Among women, we aim to see a 20 percent increase in net household income, along with marked increases in decision-making and mobility. Among men, we aim to see a tangible change in perceptions and behaviours, including support for women’s enterprises and more time spent on domestic labour.

Visa and Hand in Hand’s entrepreneur training communities boosts incomes in Nairobi’s most deprived communitie

Visa and Hand in Hand’s entrepreneur training communities boosts incomes in Nairobi’s most deprived communities: Kenya Micro-Enterprise Success Programme, Endline report by 60DB
Members saw an average income uplift of USD $156 per month
Hand in Hand’s Kenya Micro-Enterprise Success Programme (KMES) project, funded by Visa Inc., has resulted in entrepreneurs typically increasing their incomes by USD $156 per month, according to a report by 60DB.
The project is the first of its kind to target existing small business owners as well as first-time entrepreneurs. Delivered in Nairobi’s informal settlements, which the UN describes as “some of the most dense, unsanitary and insecure slums in the world,” the project aimed to boost local economies, create jobs, and lift families out of poverty.
The three-year programme provided 8,200 start-up entrepreneurs (6,560 of them women) living below the poverty line with the core business training they needed to start their own micro enterprises. It also provided advanced training to 1,600 people (1,280 of them women) who already owned and operated small businesses in the area, as part of its ‘accelerator’ cohort.
The report found:
– Members are now more resilient, and report improved ability to meet financial needs, with 91% and 94% of start-up and accelerator members respectively able to come up with the funds to cover an emergency.
– Start-up members increased their profitability by an average of 15%, earning an additional USD $150 a month. Accelerator members boosted their businesses’ profits by an average of 95%, earning an additional USD $192 a month.

– Women in both cohorts are now more involved in joint decision-making with their spouses. 54% of women in the start-up cohort and 56% of women in the accelerator cohort make joint decisions with their spouse when it comes to matters regarding health, visiting friends and family and large purchases.
– Members continue to see changes in their quality of life a year after the Hand in Hand training. 97% of start-up members and 95% of accelerator members say their quality of life has improved because of the Hand in Hand training still a year later.

Hand in Hand expands partnership with German government

Hand in Hand Afghanistan’s work with returnees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) is set to reach new heights this year, thanks to a major expansion funded by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), the German government’s development agency.

Launched in January under GIZ’s ‘Returning to New Opportunities’ programme, the project aims to help 1,500 returnees, IDPs and host community members work their way towards a prosperous future in the country’s growing poultry value chain by the end of 2018. It follows on the heels of a successful pilot project, also funded by GIZ, which trained 500 returnees and IDPs to do the same.

Once refugees, now returnees

Imagine if during the 2015-’16 migrant crisis some 50 million people, not 3 million, arrived on Europe’s shores, hungry and desperate for work. Now imagine if Europe was one of the poorest places on Earth, lacking even the most basic services required to keep up.

That, proportionately, is the problem facing Afghanistan, the world’s largest source of refugees for more than three decades, today facing the inverse problem: the world’s largest returnee crisis, with some 2.5 million people expected back in the country this year and next. Add another 1.8 million IDPs, many fleeing intensified fighting between the Taliban and Afghan army in Jawzjan and Kunduz provinces, and the true scale of the problem becomes clear.

Recognising that this growing cohort cannot be ignored if the Sustainable Development Goals are to be achieved in Afghanistan, Hand in Hand and GIZ teamed up last year.

The pilot

Implemented from September to December 2017, the Hand in Hand-GIZ pilot project proved Afghanistan’s poultry sector is ideally suited to returnees and IDPs. Skills are easily learned. Incomes, compared to other sectors, are high. Businesses can be run from entrepreneurs’ own households, whatever the season. And nutrition and food security improve. Furthermore, by training returnees and IDPs in the same groups as local populations, strangers become friends and communities cohere. By the time the pilot was done, 500 new members had started poultry farms, establishing three associations to help take their eggs to market.

Lessons learned

The pilot also highlighted several areas for improvement. Most notable, perhaps, was a preference among members for natural breeding – that is, incubating fertile eggs under brooding hens – over solar powered incubation machines. True, this method is more time consuming, they told us. But it also eliminates their reliance on technicians, thus making them more self-sufficient, and functions whether in rain or shine.

We’re also changing the way eggs are stored. At the pilot’s outset, it was suggested that communal spaces be renovated to accommodate solar powered chillers to keep eggs cool before they reached market. But negotiating with local authorities who owned the spaces proved slow-going and costly, forcing a change in tack. Consequently, chillers will now be stored in new ‘conex-prepared homes’ – picture shipping containers – instead.

Hand in Hand shortlisted for Charity Awards

Hand in Hand International’s target-smashing project with CARE International in Rwanda has been shortlisted for the 2017 Charity Awards, one of three finalists to advance in the International aid and development category.

The programme, which concluded in 2016, created 115,000 jobs versus a target of 80,000 and increased members’ incomes by an average of 75 percent, finishing 22 percent under budget.

Event organisers’ Civil Society Media announced the shortlist last week, selected by an independent panel of charity leaders for demonstrating “outstanding best practice” to other organisations in the sector.

“The standard of entries this year was incredible, and the charities we shortlist remain a constant inspiration to all of us,” said Juliet Chislett, chief executive of Civil Society Media. “Our rigorous judging process singles out those charities with the most innovative ideas and the most inspirational approaches to delivering maximum impact.”

Now in their 18th year, the Charity Awards are the UK’s biggest, longest-running and best-known event of their kind. Winners will be announced on 8 June at a gala held in the grounds of the Tower of London and hosted by BBC presenter Louise Minchin.

For a full shortlist, click here.

Hand in Hand’s Seema Ghani wins Bond’s Outstanding Individual Award

Hand in Hand Afghanistan Chair Seema Ghani is the winner of Bond’s Outstanding Individual Award.

The award, which celebrates “exceptional people who have made a lasting contribution to the sector”, was presented last night at the Bond Conference International Development Awards ceremony in London, the biggest event of its kind in Europe. It was the Outstanding Individual Award’s first year, and the Bond Awards’ fourth.

“At Hand in Hand we believe in helping people to help themselves,” said Seema, accepting her award. “There’s a new generation of young thinkers [with the power to change Afghanistan] but they can’t do it without you.”

Seema was recognised first and foremost for her work with Hand in Hand, but her contribution to the sector does not stop there. After fleeing Afghanistan’s 20-year civil war in the 1990s, Seema settled in London and established a career working with some of the City’s biggest Fortune 500 companies. She returned to Afghanistan just weeks after the fall of the Taliban to help the country rebuild, and went on to co-found the People’s Anti-Corruption Movement and Afghan Women Charter, as well help Hand in Hand Afghanistan create some 27,000 businesses and 32,000 jobs – and counting – as the organisation’s Chair.

Seema beat out seven other nominees to win the award, including finalists Robert Walters of international blindness prevention charity Orbis and Georgette Mulheir, CEO of Lumos, a charity working to end the institutionalisation of children.

Her win comes just months after Martha Huntley, Hand in Hand International’s Major Donor and Corporate Fundraising Officer, won a National Fundraising Award for Best Fundraising Newcomer.

Click here to read Seema’s full nomination.