UN Women presents Grenada’s Agriculture Ministry with Tablets and Software for Online Land and Business Registry Help Desks for Women and Youth in the Agri/Fisheries Sector

UN Women Photos/Brainstorm Productions – UN Women Representative Tonni Brodber making the presentation to Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture Isaac Bhagwan

18th November 2024, St. George’s Grenada: On a recent visit to Grenada, Tonni Brodber, Representative – UN Women Multi-Country Office (MCO) Caribbean presented tablets and software for land and agri-fisheries business registry online help desks.

Permanent Secretary Isaac Bhagwan expressed his appreciation on behalf of the Minister of Agriculture, the Honourable Lennox Andrews and the Ministry, noting the timeliness of the support. He said data capture is critical for all those involved in agriculture, particularly the farmers and fisherfolk who had been impacted by July 2024 Hurricane Beryl.

The Help desks were developed and the tablets furnished under the Joint UN Trust Fund for Human Security: “Building Effective Resilience for Human Security in the Caribbean Countries: The Imperative of Gender Equality and Women Empowerment in a Strengthened Agriculture (and related Agri/Fisheries Small Business) Sector” which was funded by the Government of Japan.

Ms. Brodber explained the project aimed to support more gender-responsive approaches in agriculture.

“To encourage youth, women who were in business but had not registered their land nor businesses, to get their businesses and land registered. This enables more access to financing as well as increased access to the services offered through the Ministry of Agriculture in Grenada.”

Reiterating that the equipment would be put to immediate use, Permanent Secretary Bhagwan said a number of initiatives were taking place in Grenada. 

“The tablets will help us in terms of the data and (the online help desks) for collating all the information so we know who are our farmers and what areas they are involved in. Of course, we know the issue of youth in agriculture and women in particular have to be given attention. Also too, the Government of Grenada we have started an initiative called the land regularisation process. We have thousands of persons who … had been given government land and have completed payment and Government is on course to hand over 300 title deeds by December. 

The UN Women Representative said even though the HSTF project had ended, the legacy of projects continue.

“We are able to enhance through the Government of Canada and their support to the Build Back Equal Project which is a joint programme between UN Women and UNFPA to support Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Dominica and St. Lucia and the governments and civil society organisations to strengthen access to finance to entrepreneurs, especially women and youth-owned businesses as well as People Living With Disabilities (PLWD) and we have a focus within that for the agri-business sector as well as the sustainable tourism sector. 

The P.S. also noted “We also notice that quite a number of women are involved in the agro processing sector, and we need to be able to provide the support from a business point of view. The Ministry of Agriculture will be establishing an agro processing desk as of next year and so they would be able to capture data on all involved in this sector including the women, to establish a registry on the types of businesses and to capture the challenges e.g. what support is needed in packaging, labelling, bottling and who are the main distributors and marketers”.

Permanent Secretary Bhagwan added that most people operate from home and so the Ministry intends to provide a one stop shop for manufacturing space, equipment and technical support to improve quality control and towards upscaling their production quantities. 

The HSTF Joint Programme was led by UN Women and jointly implemented with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and International Labour Organization (ILO) in the beneficiary countries of Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada and Saint Lucia.