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USADF PRESIDENT recognizes INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY
USADF President Rod MacAlister highlights Foundation's efforts to empower women in Africa.
WASHINGTON - March 8, 2007
The President of the United States African Development Foundation (USADF), joined hundreds of organizations around the world celebrating International Women’s Day by congratulating women in Africa and around the world. “Women play a vital role in society, particularly in Africa where women fulfill multiple tasks, from care-giving and child rearing to farming and income-generating activities. Despite this, women across Africa are successfully resolving conflicts, running businesses, and empowering themselves and others around them. USADF congratulates these women who achieve so much with so little”, stated Mr. MacAlister.
USADF, which provides funding for African small businesses and social enterprises to help create wealth and prosperity, measures its success by the socio-economic impact of the Foundation’s investments and places a high priority on women. In 2006, USADF investments helped create jobs and income security for 21,540 women in the 16 countries where USADF works. Many of the Foundation's investments are in women-run businesses and organizations, and cover a diverse range of activities, from crop production and food processing to production of pharmaceutical products and provision of essential services. In 2006, the Foundation helped link basket-weaving groups in Tanzania and Ghana to Target Corporation in the United States, a move that resulted in sales of handwoven baskets at Target stores throughout the country and provided increased incomes to over 1100 women.
The USADF President took advantage of the occasion to announce a new USADF initiative. “In 2006, women around the world lost one of their strongest supporters and advocates for female empowerment: Willie Grace Campbell, who served as Vice Chairperson of the Board of the US African Development Foundation from 1995 to 2006. In memory of Mrs. Campbell, USADF has established a Fund in her name to benefit and empower women in Africa,” he announced proudly. The establishment of a Fund in Mrs. Campbell’s name has been enthusiastically received by her family, friends and former colleagues.
Twenty-three years after establishing field operations in Africa, USADF has country programs in 16 countries throughout west, east and southern Africa, and has funded over 1,600 projects in support of African entrepreneurs and local Afri can communities, helping to create jobs and raise the incomes of over 114,000 people. USADF currently manages a portfolio of 240 investments in African-owned, small- and medium-sized enterprises. In 2006, these enterprises generated US$80 million in gross revenues, US$11 million of which was derived from export sales.