Strategic sectors
Ten sectors, deliberately connected
SWEEF concentrates on ten interconnected sectors with strong potential to increase women’s income, employment, food security, enterprise performance and resilience.
The ten strategic sectors
Why the sectors are linked
A woman supported in fisheries may also require skills training, finance, processing capability and market access. SWEEF is structured to deliver across those boundaries rather than within a single silo. The sectors below describe areas of expertise, not separate programmes a participant must choose between.
Women's Economic Empowerment
Expanding the economic opportunities available to women and strengthening their control over income, assets and economic decisions.
Entrepreneurship & Women-Led SMEs
Supporting women to start, formalize, manage and grow enterprises that are commercially viable and employ others.
Fisheries & the Blue Economy
Raising the value women capture from marine resources, while supporting sustainable use of them.
Agriculture & Agribusiness
Moving women farmers from subsistence production towards productive, climate-smart, market-connected agribusiness.
Livestock & Livelihood Development
Strengthening women’s position in livestock value chains across pastoral and agro-pastoral systems.
Skills Development & Employment
Demand-led skills that lead to real work, matched to employer and market needs, not to available curricula.
Financial Inclusion & Access to Finance
Closing the gap between women’s enterprises and the financial system, working on both sides of it.
Food Processing & Value Addition
Moving women from selling raw produce to selling finished, branded, higher-value products.
Climate & Environmental Sustainability
Treating climate resilience as an economic issue, because livelihoods that cannot survive drought are not sustainable.
Women's Leadership & Participation
Supporting women to take up leadership positions and influence the decisions that shape their economic environment.
Cross-cutting priorities
Integrated into every program, not bolted on
The following priorities are built into the design, delivery, monitoring and evaluation of every SWEEF program rather than treated as separate components.
- Gender equality & women’s empowerment
- Youth participation
- Climate resilience & environmental sustainability
- Digital transformation
- Financial inclusion
- Safeguarding, PSEA & protection
- Social inclusion
- Conflict sensitivity & do-no-harm
- Accountability to affected populations
- Monitoring, evaluation, research & learning
- Evidence-based & adaptive programming
- Local ownership & localisation
Sector partnership
Bring a sector, a market or a finance product to the table.
SWEEF is looking for partners with technical depth in these sectors, buyers who need reliable supply, and financiers prepared to design for women-led enterprise.