In Malawi, female fish traders mobilise against transactional sex

A group of Kenyan coastal women used a blue economy grant to establish a mud crab-fattening enterprise in Jomvu Creek, generating up to $310/month in collective income and planting nearly 1 million mangrove seedlings.

Twenty women in Kaduna, Nigeria formed a cooperative in 2015 that pooled their farm labor earnings to collectively purchase land, transforming them from hired laborers earning ₦2,000-₦10,000 per day into independent landowners who now harvest enough to support their families' education and healthcare while contributing food to their community.

ACCESS Development Services trains women to drive electric auto rickshaws, providing them with marketable skills that help them earn a living independently. The all-women Pink City Rickshaw Company employs the women to provide tours throughout the city and has since trained over 200 women.

Novia Scotia, Canada, created community economic development investment funds with a 35% tax credit to investors to help small businesses that need capital but don’t qualify for bank loans. The cooperative FarmWorks brings together investors and farmers using this funding method to provide loans that will directly support the local food network.

Modeled after Spain’s Mondragon, an organization that helps develop cooperatively-owned businesses, Co-op Cincy is a nonprofit incubator helping businesses in Cincinnati, Ohio, do the same. The organization runs an educational course to teach teams everything they need to know, provides access to loans, and has ongoing technical assistance for its co-ops.

Women-only taxi companies like An Nisa in Nairobi empower women to become rideshare drivers. These opportunities combat gender bias and create a safer space for women.

Residents of Garima Greh, an organization that provides transgender people with housing and necessities in New Delhi, started a small business making potpourri from the flowers discarded by local temples. They use the funding to pay for necessary medical expenses and gender-affirming care.

A coworking space in Baltimore focuses on making it easier for Black mom entrepreneurs to grow their businesses by offering affordable, on-site babysitting.

Worker-owned cooperative restaurants are giving employees ownership of, and a voice in, their workplace while removing the single-person dependency of the traditional restaurant structure.

Women in central India are being recruited and professionally trained as wildlife safari guides and naturalists. Government hiring initiatives and Pugdundee Safaris' ProNat program have provided rural women with stable, well-paying careers while improving the safari experience for tourists and increasing conservation compliance in tiger reserves.