The WE-RISE program in Tanzania, Malawi, and Ethiopia more than tripled the number of households that had more diverse—and therefore more resilient—incomes in Ethiopia. Tanzania more than doubled the number of empowered women in the program. How did they do it? Getting men to trust their wives.
At the beginning of the project, men in Malawi said that women who had income must be getting it illicitly from other men—now they know that women are making great contributions to the family through their work and savings.
Working with SOS Sahel and the Mponela AIDS Information Center, with the generous support of the Australia Africa Community Engagement Scheme, WE-RISE worked in 3 countries from 2013-2016 to improve food security, resilience, and women’s empowerment.
What did we accomplish?
- Greater access to food for women: Women in Ethiopia saw their access to food in the household go up by 32%--achieving equality with men.
- Diversified incomes: Ethiopia tripled the number of families with access to diverse income sources, and Malawi saw a 43% increase in the number of families with non-agricultural income.
- More empowered women: In Tanzania, the women’s empowerment index rose by 37%. There was a 91% increase in women’s self-confidence, and a 56% increase in access to household decision-making.
- Increased household resilience: Besides more diverse incomes, households in Tanzania saw a 26% improvements in assets, which gives them a base to draw on in emergencies. All 3 countries saw substantial increases in assets.
- More women leaders: In Malawi, there was a 33% increase in women leaders across all groups. Malawian women were 63% more confident to speak up about gender in public forums.
- Women have their own resources: At baseline, a lot of women in Malawi were using their husband’s income to contribute to VSLAs—now they use their own.
How did we get there?
- Build and strengthen collectives: WE-RISE worked with groups—especially VSLAs—to roll out the interventions targeting 26,287 households. This allowed more efficient project intervention, and helped families reduce dependence on high-interest informal loans.
- Get women access to resources: The project more than tripled women’s access to extension in Malawi, and saw significant improvement in all countries. In Ethiopia, women doubled their access to and control over loans. In Tanzania, women more than doubled their access to agricultural inputs.
- Improve agricultural practice: In Tanzania, the number of farmers using adaptive practices more than doubled, the number using improved agricultural practice more than tripled.
- Target the most vulnerable: In Tanzania, the project specifically selected the hardest to reach, least gender equitable areas to give the poorest people a chance to benefit from project activities.
Want to learn more?
Check out the Global Final Evaluation. Or look at specific reports from Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Malawi. Results varied a lot by country, and El Nino was a significant underlying factor in some of them. So take a look at the individual results to see where there was progress and where we struggled.