At our core, we are an African-rooted organisation led by African women, who are co-creating solutions to some of the Continent's biggest challenges together with the communities we serve.
Over the years, we have continued to tackle structural barriers to change how public and private institutions address women, adolescent girls, and children's rights.
2022 marked 12 years since our establishment, and the core of who we are remains steadfast. Our ambitions, however have grown exponentially, fuelled by the creativity and determination of the changemakers we are privileged to work alongside every day.
This year, we deepened and expanded our impact across the breadth of our portfolio, and initiated an institutional transformation to improve the effectiveness and sustainability of our impact.
Women's Economic Development
At the ecosystem level, our women's networks achieved collective impact across 7 countries, influencing private and public actors to adopt more gender inclusive COVID - 19 economic recovery responses. Convened in 2021, their efforts were reinforced by the Expert Leaders Group, which consists of influential women leaders within Reserve and Central Banks in Africa, who are driving systemic action towards the advancement of women's participation and inclusion in economies.
Recognizing the important role that women-owned businesses play in accelerating the economic and social advancement of their communities, we are working directly with women entrepreneurs in Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania, and South Africa. Together we are tackling one of the biggest barriers to the growth of these women-owned businesses - access to finance - by strengthening their capacity to secure financing. In further addressing this market failure, we generated commitments towards Afrishela, a gender lens investment fund which is poised to disrupt the investment landscape for Africa's women entrepreneurs.
Adolescent Girls, and Children
2022 is also the year we pioneered the pan-African Adolescent Girls Movement, representing an innovative, new approach towards nurturing adolescent girls. Together with girls led and serving organizations, we have started in Southern Africa, and over the next few years, will ensure that all girls in Africa have a place and space to feel heard, nurtured and supported.
In the area of education, we made significant progress around enabling out-of-school children - and in particular girls -to return into the classroom in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania. This involved generating evidence in support of adapting and scaling an enhanced accelerated learning program for out-of-school children, to facilitate the re-integration of out-of-school rural girls into mainstream education and improve their education outcomes.
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Institutional Transformation
We are on an exciting growth trajectory, and an internal transformation is underway to effectively position us to redouble our efforts. Comprised of seasoned professionals, the diverse experience of our dynamic leadership team continues to shape this transformation. We are growing in number, and are onboarding a range of mission-critical positions to bolster our in-house expertise. If you're interested in joining us, please check out these openings on our website!
This year, we commenced a strategy development process with the aim of re-focusing, improving our sustainability, and growing our influence. We critically evaluated what we are doing right, and the lessons learned. We grounded our thinking in our environment to better understand how the groups we serve, our peers, partners, sector thought leaders and wider public see us, where they perceive our added value and why. We look forward to sharing more on our strategy in 2023!
Thank you.
Our year of transformation would not have been possible without our mission aligned community including our inspiring women's networks; trusted funders; learning and thought partners; and experts. Thank you to the dedicated Graça Machel Trust team, indefatigable Board of Trustees, and above all, the women, children, and adolescent girls we serve.
