Italy and UN WOMEN: Launching of the programme aimed at enhancing women’s entrepreneurial capacity in Fisheries and Agribusiness in Red Sea State

Italy and UNWOMEN has signed today the technical agreement for the two-year project aimed at enhancing women’s entrepreneurial capacity in Fisheries and Agribusiness in Red Sea State, in particular in traditional area of intervention such as Port Sudan, Suakin and Mohammed Gool, funded by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation and implemented by the UN Agency.

The initiative wants to contribute to women’s economic empowerment and to support livelihoods through three main tools of intervention: introduction of new technologies to increase the productivity of women in fisheries and agribusiness; access to financial and non-financial services and promotion of women’s cooperatives and associations. The project will improve the competences of the women involved in terms of small business management and techniques of processing and commercialization of agri-business products, especially fish, a precious resource in the State of Red Sea. Moreover, the objective is to produce food with high nutritional content, especially baby food.

To boost the development of key agricultural value chains and market access are our main goal to support Sudan in its efforts to revive its agriculture, affirmed the Italian Ambassador, H.E Fabrizio Lobasso. Italy is committed in supporting women’s empowerment and gender equality and the UNWOMEN initiative is in line with our strategy. Women are the are key to agriculture and food security in Sudan. This project will close the gaps between men and women in their value chain, thereby creating new opportunities for the agribusiness and fisheries sector as a whole, concluded the Ambassador.

Women carry out a major portion of agricultural activities and bear almost the entire burden of household work, including water and fuelwood collection and food processing and preparation. Empowering women to play their active role in the production and enjoy the benefit is the most sustainable way to positively transform poverty and leave no one behind, said Adjaratou Fatou Ndiaye, UNWOMEN Country Representative in Sudan. Agriculture and fisheries can be an important engine of growth and poverty reduction and women are a crucial resource facing constraints that reduce their productivity.

Through this project Italy and UNWOMEN will boost gender-smart solutions in agribusiness in order to increase the sector’s productivity and profitability and lead to stronger, more integrated value chains.