Grants and Contributions

Not a Project (Mandated or Core Funding)

Contribution as part of the Participant Funding Program to Comité ZIP Saguenay-Charlevoix to assist in preparing for and engaging in Indigenous consultation activities and public participation opportunities associated with the impact assessment process for the Gazoduq Natural Gas Transmission Line Project.

Contribution as part of the Participant Funding Program to Northern Peninsula (Mekap'sk) Mi'kmaq Band to assist in preparing for and engaging in Indigenous consultation activities and/or public participation opportunities associated with the Offshore Exploration Drilling Regional Assessment in Newfoundland and Labrador.

The Innovation in Non-traditional Vocational Education and Skills Training (INVEST) for women in Ghana project has been selected as part of the Innovation for Women’s Economic Empowerment in Ghana Call for Preliminary Proposals. The project will be using an inclusive market systems (IMS) approach to address key socio-cultural barriers to women’s participation in more lucrative, non-traditional and high-growth sectors. The project will focus on training and building capacity of young urban poor women in three main urban areas of Ghana and seek to improve societal attitudes toward women in trades and technology. The project will also build the capacity of local Technical and Vocational Education and Training organizations, as well as local training providers, to design and deliver gender-sensitive, competency-based, market-relevant skills training in high-growth sectors (such as electricity and electronics), focusing on employing young women. INVEST will also support the industry to hire, promote and retain women in the workplace. Female employees and industry partners will also receive technical assistance and training on labour rights, mentorship and coaching, in order to strengthen their capacity to support women within their chosen field. The project will directly benefit 5,000 women in the urban areas of Accra, Kumasi and Sekondi-Takoradi by helping them to develop skills to secure their employment or start their own business. Amongst the women that will be directly reached by the project, 80% (4,000) are expected to be between the age of 18 and 35 years old.

The project aims to improve the social and economic well-being for the most vulnerable populations in East and West Africa, including crisis-affected communities, particularly poor women and girls. The project works to accomplish this by building the capacity of targeted innovative social enterprises and emerging leaders committed to improving the lives of Africans, specifically women and conflict affected populations living in poverty. The project also aims to help strengthen the evidence base for gender lens investing – or investing with an aim to earn financial returns and address gender disparities – as a poverty reduction tool.

Project activities include: (1) providing “inclusion grants” to African social enterprises to develop or refine products, services and approaches that better serve vulnerable populations in East and West Africa, including women and girls, and crisis affected communities; (2) developing and implementing gender-responsive impact measurement tools to deliver actionable insights into the impact of products and services on women and girls and crisis-affected populations in East and West Africa; (3) delivering training and tools to Acumen portfolio teams from East and West Africa to strengthen the integration of a gender equality lens across Acumen’s organization and investment cycle; and (4) supporting emerging leaders to participate in Acumen’s one-year Fellowship Program (55% women business leaders or entrepreneurs; 35% women and men in, or working on issues related to, crisis-affected communities).

This project supports pre-deployment training for Ghana Armed Forces, especially women, to enhance their skills and knowledge in communication, peacekeeping command structures, and gender and conflict dynamics for participation in peacekeeping missions. A huge barrier to women’s participation in UN peace operations is the lack of capacity and will among the UN and troop/police contributors. Ghana is a key troop and police contributing country to the UN, and has manifested its willingness to increase the number of women in uniform in accordance with the UN Uniformed Gender Parity Strategy. This project is collaborating with the Ghana Armed Forces to conduct a 14-day intensive course for military officers, mostly women, to help prepare them for deployments to UN peacekeeping operations.

The project consists in finding local partners for the distribution of our products in the selected markets as well as demonstrating to some potential major customers and influencers, the added value of our products.

To pursue and implement our strategy in the western United States, we are planning a project 2 land missions including participation as an exhibitor to 2 major mining fairs.

Sell into 2 key markets the US West and UK. We will attend trade shows to generate high value leads and partners, while having in-person meetings with clients identified. We will work with market experts to generate high level leads.

The goal of DUST 2.0 is to architect and implement a technology upgrade that will improve the accuracy in capturing network information with the added capability of analyzing data in real-time, increasing the overall efficiency of the testing process. The secondary goal is to design a tool that will facilitate the development of future enhancements to the tool.