Increasing Women’s Empowerment through Co-creation and Private Sector Engagement
Event Information
Join the Feed the Future Advancing Women’s Empowerment (AWE) program for the launch of a special learning series focused on increasing women’s empowerment in agriculture and market systems through co-creation and private sector engagement.
This learning series, newly expanded for a global audience, will help USAID missions and practitioners intentionally integrate inclusion across the project life cycle of agricultural growth and market systems development programs.
This kickoff webinar will introduce the global Virtual Learning Series and its key themes:
- Getting to Shared Value: Creating Alignment with the Private Sector to Achieve Inclusive Development Results
- Designing a Strategy for Private Sector Engagement: Conducting and Using Inclusive Market Research
- Measuring Transformational Results: Engaging the Private Sector to Capture and Apply Evidence
During the kickoff webinar, participants will hear lessons learned from the original learning series, conducted with USAID mission in Latin America and the Caribbean, hear insights from two USAID missions, and engage in an interactive activity.
The webinar will also introduce the activities that will follow over the next several months of the Virtual Learning Series, where participants will have opportunities to access and share information through interactive online “Learning Bursts.”
If you are unable to attend the webinars, you can sign up to receive recaps and further information from the learning series here.
Resources
Speakers
Aslihan Kes
Senior Gender Advisor
USAID Bureau for Resilience and Food Security
Asli is a Senior Gender Advisor in RFS with experience working on gender issues in agricultural and rural development, more recently with a focus on women’s off-farm employment and entrepreneurship, financial inclusion, and solutions to unpaid care. Ms. Kes’s work has also examined the economic costs of gender inequality, including through household food insecurity and malnutrition. Prior to joining RFS, she worked as a Senior Economist at a global research institute (ICRW) where she led research, conducted evaluations, and supported partner organizations to build their gender capacity.
Melissa Matlock
Associate Director of Gender and Social Inclusion
ACDI/VOCA
Melissa Matlock is an Associate Director of Gender and Social Inclusion at ACDI/VOCA, where she conducts research and develops strategies to help empower women and youth by integrating considerations related to gender, youth, and other marginalized populations across projects and new business efforts. With expertise in gender, finance, value chains, and market development issues, Ms. Matlock has provided technical assistance and managed agricultural finance and market development projects at Connexus Corporation and the SEEP Network. She served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Costa Rica.
Jorge Reyes Reina
Project Management Specialist
USAID Honduras
Jorge Reyes Reina is a Project Management Specialist with USAID/Honduras. Mr. Reyes supports the mission’s Feed the Future portfolio, and has worked in private sector engagement, energy, and digital development. Mr. Reyes is USAID/Honduras’s co-liaison with the Development Finance Corporation and currently manages the mission’s Transforming Market Systems activity, which fosters inclusive economic development opportunities through a facilitative approach based on close collaboration with local private- and public-sector stakeholders. Prior to joining USAID, he was the Grants & Alliances Manager for a violence prevention program for at-risk youth and served as a Project Manager with Peace Corps Honduras.
Dr. Jenn Williamson
Vice President, Gender and Social Inclusion
ACDI/VOCA
Dr. Jenn Williamson is a expert in gender equality and inclusion of marginalized groups who may be at risk because of social factors such as their age, ability, sexual identity, religion, or ethnic or racial identity. Dr. Williamson serves as the gender and agriculture systems advisor for the AWE program and as a technical advisor to the ACDI/VOCA-implemented Gender & Nutrition through Innovative Technical Exchange in Agriculture (IGNITE) mechanism, which strengthens African institutions’ ability to integrate nutrition and gender into their way of doing business and their agriculture interventions. She previously led the women’s economic empowerment learning track under the USAID-funded Leveraging Economic Opportunities project. Prior to joining ACDI/VOCA, Jenn was a Global Technical Advisor at Counterpart International.
Joyce Mndambi
Project Management Specialist–Private Sector Engagement
USAID/Tanzania
Joyce Mndambi is USAID/Tanzania’s Project Management Specialist for Private Sector Engagement and is the primary lead for the Feed the Future Private Sector Strengthening activity. Drawing on her extensive experience working with bi-lateral international diplomatic missions and agencies to improve the lives of women and youth, Ms. Mndambi serves as the advisor for private sector development and engagements and provides technical expertise in program designs that seek to accelerate Tanzania’s inclusive, broad-based economic growth in the agriculture sector, including engaging government stakeholders across multiple ministries.
