Plan International Ghana and its partners held a close-out ceremony to mark the end of the Women’s Innovation for Sustainable Enterprises Project (WISE). WISE was a 5-year project which focused on providing young women and older adults aged 19–55 with training in skills and work and small businesses.
“The support from the WISE project has allowed me to support my family in so many ways. I now have a sustainable source of income and an alternative source of protein for my children. My boys are now back in school, although there is a big gap between them and their classmates, but I believe they will catch up,” shared Zuriya, a mushroom farmer.
The Project began on the 31st of January 2020 to 31st March 2025 and was implemented in the Northern, Bono, Bono-East, and Ahafo regions and promoted businesses such as beekeeping and honey production, snail farming, mushroom farming, cereal, legume and vegetable crop farming amongst women.
Key achievements of the WISE project
- The project directly targeted 12,641 women (aged 19 – 55) with 4,046 women receiving agricultural and green business support and indirectly targeted 156,609 people (86% females).
- 64 child-friendly and safe spaces built and a further 28 refurbished enabling parents to go to work and know that their children are well taken care of.
- 870 women opened savings accounts and 210 received loans totalling GHS 512,117.
- 298 programme participants were trained on marketing, packaging of materials and customer care.
- Partnerships were forged with 11 women’s rights organisations.
- 5,445 women received direct business start-up support in green and agri-business.
- 4 manuals and 1 research paper developed.
- 3 solar-powered rural kiosks and 5 business advisory centres strengthened.
Supporting and partnering with women to learn skills benefits communities, families and women, enhancing well-being, livelihoods, and healthy family relationships. Results of the WISE project show the benefits at household level when women are supported and have an enabling environment to fully participate in economic activities.
Kathleen Flynn Dapaah, Director and Head of Cooperation of High Commission of Canada to Ghana said of the project, “Women helping women; women employing other women; women taking on the care of others’ children for a small fee, so that they can go work on their farms knowing their children are being looked after in their community safe space; women being brave and adapting, learning, growing their knowledge through training and through searching out market information from the Solar ‘HerHubs’ which serve as business information centres in rural areas. That’s what the WISE project has been all about, transformational change in the lives of Ghanaian women through their own agency.”
“Women helping women; women employing other women; women taking on the care of others’ children .. women being brave and adapting, learning, growing their knowledge. That’s what the WISE project has been all about.”
Kathleen Flynn Dapaah, Director and Head of Cooperation of High Commission of Canada to Ghana
Working together
The implementing partners of the WISE Project are Plan International (Canada and Ghana) with Urbanet and WIDO (Women Integrated Development Organization) with funding from Global Affairs Canada.
In a statement, Urbanet and WIDO shared, “We are here with great pride and honour and we are nostalgic as we look back on the great achievements. We are here not to close the project but to celebrate successes. Over the past 5 years, the WISE project has empowered over 14,000 women which demonstrates the resilience of women in driving sustainable growth. Some achievements include working with traditional leaders to promote gender equality, build solar hubs for women and encouraging women.”
Mr. Constant Tchona, the Country Director, Plan International Ghana, said Plan International Ghana is explicitly tackling the root causes of gender inequality, particularly unequal power relations and discriminatory social norms. The WISE Project, he said, was one of the 4 projects under Global Affairs Canada’s “Innovation for Women’s Economic Empowerment in Ghana” (IWEEG) initiative. He explained that the realisation of economic rights for women was a foundational key contributing to observed improvements in well-being, livelihoods and healthy family relationships among women.
In a statement, Kathleen Flynn Dapaah, Director and Head of Cooperation of High Commission of Canada to Ghana explained:
‘We have been able to implement gender transformational projects like WISE because of Canada’s Feminist International Assistance. We speak about our feminist policy often as it is the fundamental underpinning of all our development work worldwide. We believe that gender equality matters, and that the empowerment of women are central to ending poverty, promoting prosperity and ensuring peace. Through IWEEG we have invested 30 million dollars into support for women’s economic empowerment through skills training and entrepreneurship.”
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