Purpose

Women’s Earth Alliance (WEA) creates innovative solutions to issues of water, food and energy through collaborative initiatives that train, connect, and empower emerging women leaders.

The Problem

Worldwide, over a billion people live in extreme poverty, trapped in impoverished communities surrounded by environmental collapse with no access to education or productive employment. Women - caretakers, mothers, community leaders, healers, farmers, artisans, and resource stewards – face the brunt of these hardships. Their efforts to sustain and protect their families, cultures, and natural resources are nothing less than heroic. 

For instance, more than 84% of women in India are involved in agricultural activities, yet fewer than 10 percent of women farmers in India, Nepal, and Thailand own land. In many societies, women have primary responsibility for management of household water supply, sanitation, and health, but in eight sub-Saharan African countries only 22 percent to 34 percent of the population have access to safe water.

This is a critical moment in history - environmental and financial pressures are at an all time high. The health of future generations and the sustainability of our world’s cultural heritage are predicated on the degree to which women worldwide have their basic needs met and importantly, are supported to be agents of change. Longstanding biases in development programs against women, coupled with sundry forms of discrimination, have reinforced indelible hardships for women (e.g., poverty, prejudice, isolation, violence, and lack of political power), placing them in persistent harm.  

The WEA Solution

WEA works at the nexus of environmental sustainability, economic development, and women’s leadership.

WEA moves beyond “development as usual.”
WEA invests in the existing leadership and knowledge of grassroots women to achieve long-lasting results in the communities where we work. WEA identifies communities experiencing concentrated environmental threats and develops partnerships with local organizations addressing these threats.  In collaboration, WEA and its partners co-design solutions based on local knowledge and vision. This approach avoids the pitfalls of top-down practices and outsider-generated attempts at assistance that can fall short or even reify damaging dynamics.

WEA’s strategy is regenerative.
Each woman participant multiplies her knowledge and skills by training others, creating impact that is truly scalable and economically viable.  The track record of successful leadership among WEA’s participants, coupled with WEA’s global access to professional networks and resources, provides crucial leverage for systemic transformation. With this innovative positioning — at the nexus of women’s leadership, environmental sustainability, and economic development — WEA is poised to generate self-sustaining, and thriving communities worldwide.

WEA combines knowledge, capital, and community.
In collaboration with local partners, WEA co-designs unique capacity-building training programs and pro bono advocacy for grassroots women leaders that combine policy and legal tools, leadership skills, economic development, appropriate technology and communication tools. Women leaders gain access to pro bono services, peer support networks, refresher trainings, and seed capital, equipping them with the ongoing support they need to address urgent environmental, health and justice issues related to water, food, land, and climate change.

WEA's strategy is scalable.
Each woman participant multiplies her knowledge and skills by training and engaging others, creating impact that is truly scalable and economically viable. The track record of successful leadership among WEA’s participants, coupled with WEA’s global access to professional networks and resources, provides crucial leverage for systemic transformation. As WEA initiatives scale, thousands of women grassroots leaders will have a synergistic effect, optimizing the conditions for thriving communities that can uplift entire regions from dependency to autonomy.

"This work motivates more African women….[Women] were thinking it was only men who could do construction, and it was only men who could work on water issues. But now we are telling them that women can really go into the technology and help other women…It motivates them to go...with hope.”
--Monica Ayowah, Trainer, Global Women's Water Initiative