[ad_1]
The Gambia SWEDD project is worth US$25 million and will be implemented over five years. The Women’s Enterprise Fund is the implementing partner of the project.
Officials said the smaller $6 million grants will be given to adolescent girls and young women between the ages of 15 and 24 in the country.
Alpha Humma, Project Manager of the Gambia Women’s Enterprise Fund, disclosed that the sub-project is worth $6 million and “the project is intended to be provided in the form of grants” to adolescent girls and young women between the ages of 15 and 24.
“This five-year project, funded by the World Bank, aims to reach ten thousand girls (10,000) over five years, with funds disbursed annually to two thousand girls and women from vulnerable families in all regions of The Gambia,” said the project manager.
Also speaking at the ceremony, the Chairperson of the Board of Directors of the Women Enterprise Fund of the Ministry of Gender, Fatou E. Touré, said the SWEDD project aims to support the Ministry of Gender in economically empowering adolescent girls to enable them to participate in enterprise development, thereby lifting them out of poverty and other vulnerabilities.
She added that the operational manual will go a long way in facilitating the implementation of the grant, especially in terms of the criteria for granting grants to young girls and women.
Rohiyatu Ka, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Gender and Social Welfare, noted that the SWEDD+ project aims to have a positive impact on the quality of life and socio-economic empowerment of adolescent girls and young women, focusing on their sexual and reproductive health, education and economic empowerment.
She said the validated small grants manual is an outcome of the SWEDD+ sub-component on expanding economic opportunities and financial inclusion, targeting adolescent girls and young women aged 15 to 24 years.
She added that the targeted beneficiaries include both in-school and out-of-school women with the aim of enhancing their capacity for better employment and income generation.
“It is important to remember that the purpose of the document is to focus on adolescent girls and young women with disabilities and those from disadvantaged families,” she said. “Attention should also be paid to identifying the right skills, the right training programmes, developing clear qualifications and assessment criteria, institutional strengthening mechanisms and most importantly, developing good sustainable development plans.”
She added that they had no doubts about the quality of the document prepared by the technical working group as it would be subject to rigorous scrutiny.
She encouraged participants to come up with a masterpiece that would stand the test of time, because “only then can we own this document and be proud to have contributed to the success of this subsection of the project.”
[ad_2]
Source link
