“It is pause for thought that this cost in terms of GDP of violence against women and girls in Grenada is 5.24%. These are significant resources that could be directed elsewhere. This is an area that I hope as duty bearers we can look at closely with a gender-budgeting lens, our new way of doing business."

When Hurricane Beryl tore through the Caribbean in early summer, it left a trail of destroyed homes, unpassable roads, and ruined local infrastructure. As nations begin to rebuild after Beryl and brace themselves for even more storms, UN Women has been on the ground and working to ensure that women are fully integrated into recovery efforts.

The Bahamas Development Bank (BDB) and the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women Multi-Country Office - Caribbean (UN Women MCO Caribbean) recently signed a partnership agreement to provide access to low-interest loans of up to 2 million USD to agriculture, sustainable tourism, and creative businesses.

UN Women through implementation of the UN Trust Fund for Human Security Joint Programme recently presented computer equipment to Barbados’ Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Nutritional Security to support increasing women’s awareness of entrepreneurial incentive and social protection schemes.

The Barbados Statistical Service (BSS) and UN Women Multi-Country Office (MCO) - Caribbean have partnered to implement a regional initiative aimed at determining the contribution of unpaid domestic care work to the economy, introducing targeted questions to the Continuous Labour Force Survey.

Under a programme to build resilience and improve livelihoods, officers of UN Women MCO Caribbean and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) delegation were recently welcomed by Indigenous and Tribal People (ITP) in the villages of Matta and Atjoni. The mission visit was under the SDG Fund Joint Programme “Leaving No One Behind, Building Resilience, and Improving Livelihoods of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples (ITPs) in Suriname.”

With the support of the EU-UN Spotlight Initiative in Jamaica, UN Women hosted a four-day Civil Society Organisations’ Capacity Strengthening Retreat that brought together women’s rights groups, community-based organisations and other CSOs working with marginalized groups where training and dialogue were provided focusing on legal literacy, the implementation of community-based GBV programmes for key vulnerable populations and the creation of proposals to secure technical assistance and grants, which included skills building in finance planning and monitoring and evaluation.

The Standing Committee of Caribbean Statisticians of CARICOM this week at its 48th meeting, endorsed the UN Women MCO-Caribbean commissioned CARICOM Guidelines and Protocols on the Collection and Use of Administrative Data on VAWG. Administrative data reflects what is recorded/captured by an agency or service provider interacting with victims or survivors or perpetrators of gender-based violence.

Under the EU-UN Spotlight Initiative, UN Women implementing partner Atlantic Council brought together UN agencies, Government officials from several departments, civil society representatives, academics and students to discuss the challenges and opportunities around ending GBV and enhancing women’s economic empowerment.

UN Trust Fund for Human Security and the UN providing computer tablets to the agribusiness sectors in Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, and Saint Lucia

Interested and eligible suppliers are invited to submit Expressions of Interest (EOIs) to identify their desire to participate in a forthcoming solicitation process for animated videos and/or app development to facilitate Help Desk facilities for the agriculture sector in five Eastern Caribbean countries.

Through a collaboration between UN Women and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), the UN Women-IICA Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) facilitates enhanced support for women and marginalized farmers and agri-business owners, including strengthening gender-responsive services to women and youth in agri-business across the region.

Launch of two key toolkits developed by UN Women MCO Caribbean under the UN Trust Fund for Human Security (UNTFHS) Joint Programme for parliamentarians on the ParlGender Tools E-platform which focus on integrating gender equality and human security in Agricultural Policy and Structural Adjustment Programmes.

Roslyn Williams-George is a climate change activist in Trinidad and Tobago and president of the Cashew Gardens Community Council. Roslyn speaks out on the climate crisis in Trinidad and Tobago and how women are taking the reins of waste management in her community.

Ten women entrepreneurs in the agribusiness sector in Jamaica received stipends valued at $100,000 Jamaica Dollars to scale their businesses under the Women’s Entrepreneurship Support (WES) Project. The stipends were financed through the Enabling Gender-Responsive Disaster Recovery, Climate and Environmental Resilience in the Caribbean (EnGenDER) Project, a project funded by the Government of Canada and UK FCDO, which is UNDP-led with co-implementation by UN Women, WFP and CDEMA.

This inaugural issue of the Caribbean Regional Spotlight Initiative Newsletter highlights foundational elements established so far to ensure the success of the regional programme.

“COVID-19 brought about virtual change and we were not ready…the training helped us to make the change.” ~Training Participant. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and its pervasive socio-economic impacts, women across the Caribbean have had to find innovative ways to continue to generate income to provide for themselves, their families, and their communities. Thanks to a United Nations Trust Fund for Human Security (UNTFHS)supported training programme, entitled: &ldquo...

To support the women farmers during this crisis, UN Women has re-oriented its project, which initially intended to establish a seed bank to guard against future disasters. The project will now temporarily pivot to connect farmers to new outlets and market opportunities.

Nearly a year ago, catastrophic hurricanes devastated the Caribbean. After Hurricane Irma, almost the entire population of Barbuda, a small island in the eastern Caribbean, was driven to its twin island of Antigua. In Dominica, Hurricane Maria wiped out crops, equipment and infrastructure. In efforts to ensure that women both benefit from, and lend their expertise to the humanitarian response in the Caribbean, UN Women has been working with partners in the immediate aftermath of the storms and beyond.