Innovators in Rural Community Economic Development
Action Aid, an international NGO, has used the Handbook on Gender Sensitive Access to Markets written by Shanna Ratner and Barbara Wyckoff in trainings in Gambia, Rwanda, and Indiia. Stepdown trainings have already occurred and the tools are being applied at the community level. Action Aid is planning trainings in Bangladesh, Senegal, and Ghana during the first half of 2017. Several other countries are interested including Burundi, Mozambique, Haiti, Tanzania, and Pakistan, among others.
The Handbook is based on the principles and practices of WealthWorks, an alternative approach to economic develolpment pioneered by Yellow Wood Associates in cooperation with multiple grantees and with support from the Ford Foundaiton. WealthWorks was developed to address rural poverty in the United States; we are gratified to know that it has real value in the international development context as well.
You can learn more about WealthWorks at www.yellowwood.org and at www.wealthworks.org.
