PRESS RELEASE: WI-HER joins RTI International to implement USAID’s Feed the Future Ethiopia Transforming Agriculture activity
Vienna, VA – August 10, 2023 – WI-HER is pleased to share that we have joined RTI International as a subcontractor on the five-year (2022-2027) USAID-funded Feed the Future Ethiopia Transforming Agriculture activity.
Led by RTI International, in partnership with First Consult, Land O’Lakes Venture37, and WI-HER, this USAID-funded activity aims to increase access to healthy diets, particularly for women and children, by transforming Ethiopia’s agriculture and food system. The focus of the activity is on implementing an integrated, nutrition-led approach to make safe, diverse, and nutritious foods more affordable, accessible, and desirable for consumers across 132 woredas.
A critical component of WI-HER’s role is supporting the integration of gender and social inclusion into ETA’s design and implementation. With that in mind, WI-HER recently conducted a Gender, Youth, Economic, and Social Inclusion (GYESI) Analysis & Strategy, which will inform gender-sensitive and socially inclusive activities for activity participants. Part of this analysis focused on evaluating how and why women and youth micro, small, and medium enterprise (MSME) owners make decisions, navigate work burdens and household gender dynamics, and address existing barriers and challenges to holistically engage them in the Feed the Future Ethiopia Transforming Agriculture activity moving forward. Looking ahead, this work will not only bolster Ethiopia’s food system but also produce stronger outcomes for women and youth across the different value chains by positively addressing existing gender and social inequities.
“As a woman-owned small business with established expertise in GYESI, locally led development, social behavior change, and capacity strengthening, WI-HER is well positioned to work alongside Ethiopian small businesses and entrepreneurs to strengthen their role in improving food systems across Ethiopia,” said Dr. Taroub Harb Faramand, Founder and President of WI-HER. “With our Feed the Future Ethiopia Transforming Agriculture partners, we look forward to supporting USAID localization efforts by designing innovative and sustainable interventions that promote the engagement of women, youth, and marginalized populations to establish inclusive market systems for all.”
With generous support and commitment from USAID Ethiopia, WI-HER looks forward to advancing agriculture and nutrition outcomes for Feed the Future Ethiopia Transforming Agriculture participants in partnership with RTI International, First Consult, and Land O’Lakes Venture37.
About WI-HER, LLC Launched in 2011, WI-HER is a woman-owned small business with extensive experience supporting local partners and communities to design and implement contextually-appropriate, innovative solutions to complex development challenges. Our programmatic approaches strategically consider and apply a gender equity, youth, and social inclusion (GYSI) lens to identify pathways to better outcomes and transformative change. We utilize a data-driven approach, ensuring the interventions we implement and partners we support collect, analyze, and use relevant data to identify gaps, inform activity steps and solutions, and achieve sustainable results across a wide range of technical areas and sectors, including global health, agriculture and food security, environment, energy and infrastructure, and conflict. WI-HER designs and facilitates customized training content for global and domestic stakeholders and is a recognized leader in diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA). For the past 10+ years, our tools, including our innovative and results-oriented iDARE (identify, design, apply and assess, record, expand) methodology have amplified the power of individuals and communities to drive equitable and inclusive change in over 56 countries worldwide. Our work is led by global experts who have connections to the places where we work, and who are dedicated to breaking barriers, reaching further, and supporting local teams to achieve better outcomes for all.