Evaluation of the project "Empowerment of Agricultural Women Cooperatives and Producer Associations in the Agrifood Sector of Lebanon"

FAO

Evaluation of the project "Empowerment of Agricultural Women Cooperatives and Producer Associations in the Agrifood Sector of Lebanon"

Project Code: GCP/LEB/030/CAN

Year of publication 2024

Place of publication Rome, Italy ;

Pages 58 p.

Author FAO

Publisher FAO ;

Product type Booklet

Series title Project Evaluation Series

Series number No. 47/2024

Full item page

Synopsis (short abstract) The project, implemented between March 2019 and September 2023, aimed to empower women's cooperatives and producer associations in Lebanon’s agrifood sector. Initiated by FAO at the request of Lebanon’s Ministry of Agriculture, the project sought to improve women's economic empowerment, contributing to local economic growth and social stability. FAO focused on capacity-building and training, integrating 150 women’s groups into local value chains. The project also sought to strengthen Lebanon’s Ministry of Agriculture’s Directorate of Cooperatives ability to manage and monitor cooperatives in Lebanon.The evaluation highlighted the project’s adaptability amidst challenges, such as COVID-19 and Lebanon’s economic crisis. Awareness campaigns, capacity-building efforts, and cash grant disbursements were successful, but there is room for improvement in data generation. Recommendations for future initiatives include refining the monitoring framework, continue supporting government entities, and improving oversight of local partners. Further efforts are needed to ensure long-term impact and support for vulnerable women’s groups.

Management response

Cite this content as:

FAO. 2024. Evaluation of the project "The Empowerment of Agricultural Women Cooperatives and Producer Associations in the Agrifood Sector of Lebanon" - Project code: GCP/LEB/030/CAN. Project Evaluation Series, No. 47/2024. Rome.

https://doi.org/10.4060/cd3292en

Language English

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The project will support 250 women cooperatives and associations by creating an enabling environment and establish or expand agro-food income-generating activities. The project will further support 150 women groups through cash grants and labor voucher. The capacity of the Ministry of Agriculture, directorates of agriculture and of cooperatives will be increased. سيدعم المشروع 250 تعاونية و جمعية نسائية من خلال تهيئة بيئة مؤاتية وإنشاء أو توسيع نطاق الأنشطة المدرة للدخل في مجال الأغذية الزراعية. سيتم إختيار 150 مجموعة نسائية لدعمها من خلال المنح النقدية وقسائم العمل. وبموازاة ذلك، ستُعزّز قدرة وزارة الزراعة و قدرات مديريتيّ الزراعة والتعاونيات.
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Supporting Women’s Agrifood Cooperatives and Associations in Lebanon - GCP/LEB/030/CAN 2024

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Agricultural associations and cooperatives are critical for income generation, employment creation and food security in Lebanon, where the population has increased by one-third since March 2011, when the country began to see an influx of refugees from the Syrian Arab Republic. The role of women in these associations and cooperatives has historically been limited owing to traditional beliefs surrounding the family, despite strong evidence that when women have control over resources and income, family food consumption and welfare increase, and child malnutrition decreases. This project therefore aimed to bolster both the number and capacity of women’s cooperatives and associations in rural areas of Lebanon to enhance food security and reduce poverty. A few years into implementation, multiple crises hit Lebanon, including the impacts of the conflict in the Syrian Arab Republic, the financial downturn in October 2019, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the explosion of the Port of Beirut in August 2020, and the conflict in southern Lebanon, which began in October 2023. The country’s currency lost 90 percent of its value and experienced a 36.5 percent decline in gross domestic product per capita, resulting in a reclassification from upper-middle-income country to lower-middle-income country by the World Bank in 2022. Despite these grave challenges, the project adapted to the context, ensuring delivery and achieving its main goals.
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Analysing the agrifood sector in Lebanon through the perspective of gender-sensitive value chains
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This study identifies value chain (VC) opportunities for women cooperatives, associations and individuals by adopting the FAO Gender-Sensitive Value Chain (GSVC) framework of analysis. In addition to the core and extended VC levels, as well as the national and global enabling environment. This framework adds two dimensions to be analyzed which are the individual and household levels, the areas in which gender inequalities frequently start from. Therefore, adding these two levels of analysis facilitates the systematic integration of gender equality into VC development programmes and projects. In addition to experts for each sub-sector, namely plant production, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture, animal production and agro-processing, this study included a gender consultant who played a major role in the different phases of the study. These included preparing and giving workshops to the sub-sector experts prior to the literature review and analysis, aligning their work within a gender framework, in addition to participating in the data collection phase, where the consultant revised the data collection tools prepared by the sub-sector experts for the Key Informant Interviews (KIIs), Survey and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) and attended the majority of the KIIs. The consultant additionally revised the analysis of each sub-sector, included a gender assessment and assisted in the study’s reporting.