AfDB launches women’s empowerment project in the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin

The African Development Bank (AfDB) announced on 1 April that it will soon launch a project to empower women in the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin. The objective is to help women in these regions whose vulnerability is exacerbated by climate change.

Indeed, gender inequalities in the Sahel and the Lake Chad Basin are worsening due to the challenges of climate change and insecurity that push women and communities into a cycle of vulnerability.

The AfDB has announced its commitment to strengthening the economic empowerment of women in these regions by launching three projects. The first project, funded at nearly US$2.4 million, aims to strengthen the capacity of the Lake Chad Basin Commission and promote the empowerment of women in Niger and Chad.

The Multinational project for Women’s Economic Empowerment in the Sahel Region is designed to strengthen the Bank’s work with women in Mali, Niger and Chad. Finally, a third project that will contribute to reducing the humanitarian consequences of the precariousness created by crises, conflicts and other climatic shocks, financed at USD 1.4 million.

Through this initiative, the bank aims to provide women with more financial resources, by supporting them in agricultural activities, handicrafts, livestock, the creation of micro-enterprises and the provision of services. 

In February 2021, the pan-African bank made public its gender strategy for 2021-2025 period, which focuses on five points, including the integration of gender in AfDB’s national and regional operations, making the necessary investments for the deployment of gender specialists in Africa, strengthening gender equality, women’s empowerment and the gender approach in member countries as well as mobilization in the post-Covid 19 socio-economic recovery process.