Gender and Youth Empowerment in horticulture Markets project kicks off

04 July 2016 Adama, Ethiopia: Gender and Youth Empowerment in horticulture Markets (GYEM) project, which aims to enhance women’s and youth’s social and economic empowerment in horticulture value chains, kicks off.

Financed by Comic relief and implemented by SNV in partnership with unions in Oromia and Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples regions, the project will benefit 20,000 households and 500 youth by 2019.

Speaking at the event, Ali Adem from Oromia Bureau of Finance and Economic Development said that the project will create employment, income and livelihood opportunities for women and youth in the sector.

“The project strongly aligns with the government’s priorities. Stakeholders should identify areas of collaboration and contribute their share for efficient and effective implementation” added Ali.

The GYEM project intends to strengthen unions to implement gender-sensitive strategies to balance benefits between men and women and youth from horticulture activities. Unions play a critical role in improving access to inputs, markets and service provision. However, they have to be more conscious in addressing issues affecting women. This project will add value in strengthening these organisations to raise the awareness of the leaders and members to improve their gender sensitivity.

“Women and men are devoting their time and energy on horticulture activities. However, women benefit less from these activities, which means that their households are benefiting less. We will work on bridging the gaps but also to trigger discussions between men and women about how to prevent the gaps that exist between them the horticulture value chain” said Sarah de Smet, project manager, SNV Ethiopia.

To clearly understand the gender dynamics in the local context, SNV will do value chain analysis with gender lens, and promote gender transformative strategies and context-specific solutions.

Yetnayet Girmaw, Agriculture Sector Lead, stressed that “We all have a gap to fill. We need to identify our respective roles in the process. Integrating with local stakeholders, SNV believes, will facilitate skills and technology transfer, implementation at scale and sustain impact beyond GYEM project woredas and households.”