Livelihoods and Economic Empowerment Program

For the next five years this program will focus on the following key thematic areas of intervention:

1. Sustainable Agriculture and Livestock development

This will achieved through supporting on good farming practices and livestock development for smallholders. Sustainable Agriculture is a new intervention established under this strategic plan. The agriculture component aims to improve the livelihoods of Maasai people by increasing access to food and nutrition through the promotion of agriculture as a business. The program also aims to increase knowledge and skills among Maasai communities about sustainable agriculture practices.

The programme will support women and Maasai communities at large to develop agribusiness enterprises and promote food security. Under Sustainable agriculture, the projects focus is on Farming and livestock development, Agribusiness, Land and natural resource management.

Specific Activities

Avail relevant agro-information and link small holder farmers to existing agro-support initiatives.
Market development for agriculture and livestock products through increasing access to markets by developing market strategies, creating market linkages, research and access to market information.
Facilitate Post harvest management training.
Conduct training in best farming practices in semi arid lands.
Support the emergence and registration of enterprises/producer groups as cooperatives.
Collaboration with R&D institutions to explore opportunities on dry-land agriculture.
Sharing evidence based knowledge on dry lands farming.

2. Women and Youth Economic Empowerment Project

This component will undertake projects and initiatives in economic enterprises for women and youth group’s members with the aim of strengthening women’s and youth’s capacities to engage in business enterprises, leadership and the legal empowerment.

Specific Activities

Development of women and youth businesses training and entrepreneurial skills.
Enhance women and youth skills through products design and quality assurance. Support processing, packaging and storage management.
Identification of markets (demand and supply dynamics).
Facilitate access to market information and market linkages for women and youth businesses.
Facilitate women and youth groups’ access to reliable credit schemes.

3. Land and property rights

This particular component is crucial to support economic empowerment enterprises including sustainable agriculture activities.

MWEDO will thrive to facilitate women and youth groups involved in agriculture activities/projects to have secured access to land of which will be utilized for their business enterprises, agricultural and livestock development activities.

Specific Activities

Facilitate training workshops to strengthen understanding on land administration and management systems among the local government and traditional authorities.
Organize Community dialogues with the aim of engaging local authorities in a dialogue to reach a common understanding on the issues of access to and control over and land ownership.
Develop activities to support women and youth access land and other properties.
Support activities with LGAs for provision of traditional land ownership (Village land Act No. 5 of 1999) for at least 5,000 households.
Development of community handbooks on land administration, management and conflict resolutions.
Training of community paralegals to safeguard land and ensure women’s access justice within the area of land procurement.
Strengthen Pastoralist women’s forums to advocate for their land and other properties.