Press release: Armenian and Lebanese women exchange knowledge in rural agri-business and marketing
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Tyre, July 12, 2019- UN Women’s Fund for Gender Equality (FGE) in partnership with civil society organizations the Green Lane Agricultural Assistance from Armenia and the Lebanon Family Planning Association for Development and Family Empowerment organized the first “Rural Women for Agri-business Marketing Bilateral Knowledge Exchange” in Tyr, Lebanon.
At the week-long event, 18 women from rural areas in Armenia and Lebanon exchanged knowledge, lessons learnt, best practices and experience on their entrepreneurial practice and access to agricultural markets.
The bilateral exchange took place as part of the FGE’s 2019 regional south-south and triangular cooperation strategy aimed at fostering alliances between civil society organizations in the area of women’s economic empowerment and providing insights gained from extensive experience in rural entrepreneurship.
Speaking at the closing event, Ms. Rachel Dore-Weeks, Head of UN Women Lebanon and Country Programme Manager said, “UN Women is a vocal advocate and supporter of women’s economic empowerment as it sets a direct path towards gender equality, poverty eradication and inclusive economic growth. The models of change shared today are part of that investment and merit international visibility because they are unique in their approach to upscaling rural women’s entrepreneurship”.
Ms. Rana El-Houjeiri, FGE’s Programme Manager for the Arab States, stressed that “this exercise of knowledge exchange and south-south cooperation not only helps expand cooperation beyond traditional north-to-south aid systems, but also has the potential to determine and further shape gender equality strategies and policies beyond national borders. Rural women working with other rural women to overcome wide-ranging challenges to their economic participation is a tremendous opportunity for investment”.
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The Fund for Gender Equality (FGE) is UN Women’s global grantmaking mechanism and multi-donor fund, the largest world-wide, dedicated to supporting civil society, to accelerate women’s economic and political empowerment. Since 2011, FGE has supported four women’s CSOs in Lebanon working towards greater women’s economic and political empowerment through financial and technical capacity development as well as thematic and sub-thematic expertise.