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TaiwanICDF Projects Receive the Climate Leadership Award and Gender Equality Leadership Award
Published Tue Nov. 21, 2023
The International Cooperation and Development Fund (TaiwanICDF) focused on some of the world’s most pressing contemporary development issues. In the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region, the TaiwanICDF worked with local governments to build resilient homeland, especially in those Small Island Developing States (SIDS), it undertook projects aimed at post-pandemic economic recovery and women’s empowerment. In recognition of these efforts, the TaiwanICDF received two honors at the 16th Taiwan Corporate Sustainability Awards: the Climate Leadership Award and the Gender Equality Leadership Award.
Many of Taiwan’s allies are Caribbean SIDS that are particularly vulnerable to climate change. Therefore, many TaiwanICDF projects in these countries strengthen resilience and sustainability via a three-pronged approach targeting green energy, sustainable agriculture, and resilient cities. The organization leverages Taiwan’s unique advantages in information technology, disaster risk reduction, and agriculture to strengthen allied SIDS’ national climate mitigation and adaptation strategies, systematically improving their long-term well-being.
In contrast, TaiwanICDF projects in LAC allies targeted post-pandemic recovery. In 2022 and 2023, the organization carried out the Assisting the Economic Empowerment of Women in Latin American and the Caribbean in the Post COVID-19 Era project in several friendly countries, such as St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, Haiti, Guatemala, Belize, and Paraguay. Recognizing that vulnerability in LAC women increased during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, the TaiwanICDF launched this project to ensure local women are given equal development opportunities. The program offered business training, incubation prospects, entrepreneurship competitions, relief guidance, and the provision of business loans and guarantees.
A total of 1,431 women-owned businesses took advantage of this relief aid. At the same time, many women entrepreneurs attended TaiwanICDF training courses to develop their business management capabilities. With this help, women businesses quickly re-entered the market and generated an additional US$11 million in revenue. They were then able to hire 2,358 new employees, of which 60% were women. Local governments and civil organizations have widely recognized this project’s impact.
These two awards highlight the TaiwanICDF’s commitment to technical cooperation and the UN Sustainable Development Goals, as well as its leadership in the areas of climate change mitigation and gender equality.
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- Update: 2023/11/21
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