Description of project:
Between June 2012 and March 2014, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) funded a US$84,531 project to improve livelihoods of 14 rural women in Trinidad and Tobago. The project supported development and strengthening of small economic enterprises based on the sustainable use of natural resources, and communication with policy-makers on how to develop or strengthen enabling mechanisms to support rural women entrepreneurs. The female entrepreneurs from eight rural communities in Trinidad and Tobago also built their capacity to manage their enterprises and learnt ways to ‘climate-proof’ their enterprises.
Highlights
- 14 rural women formed a formal network called Women Involved in Natural Resources (WINR)
- Sensitisation meeting
- Four (4) one-day training workshops
- Establishment of a network of women in small businesses based on use of natural resources
- Small grant allocations for implementation of resilience building measures to climate change in businesses / improvement of businesses
- Documentation of two case studies based on the project experiences of rural women managing small businesses based on sustainable use of natural resources in Trinidad and Tobago (written and video case study)
- Development of a policy brief targeted at policy makers highlighting what is needed by rural women to implement and manage small businesses based on the sustainable use of natural resources
- Presentation of project findings to key stakeholders and at regional fora by members of the network of women in small businesses based on the use of natural resources
- Toute Bagai: Small steps to build resilience to climate change. CANARI Technical Report No. 402
- Empowering rural women entrepreneurs in Trinidad and Tobago. CANARI Policy Brief No. 21
- Helping rural women build climate-resilient small businesses and networks – November 1, 2012
- Trinidad and Tobago is one of two CARICOM countries ranked among Latin America and Caribbean that provide the best environment for female entrepreneurs- August 6, 2013.