Climate Resilience through Empowering Women

The Climate Resilience through Empowering Women project aims to strengthen the climate resilience of coffee-growing communities in Southern Ethiopia while promoting the economic empowerment of marginalized women. The project is expected to deliver changes at the farm or household mill and wider industry levels to adapt to a changing climate with a particular focus on women who despite playing a critical role in coffee production and processing are economically marginalized. Also they are routinely excluded from positions of leadership influence and decision-making. The project activities include: (1) increasing women’s empowerment to equip and empower Ethiopian women as leaders in the rejuvenation of coffee farms and the production of climate resilient specialty coffee; and (2) enhancing climate change mitigation to protect and replenish the coffee forests of western and southern Ethiopia to ensure continued capture of greenhouse gases. This would reduce the vulnerability of coffee farms to increases in temperature and precipitation. The project benefits 77 000 women and men smallholder coffee farmers.

The project's expected outcomes of this project include: (1) increased women’s economic empowerment in coffee production and processing alternative forest products and community initiatives; (2) increased climate-resilient production of coffee and complementary forest products; and (3) increased farm-gate value of coffee and complementary forest products processed traded and marketed by sustainable businesses.