Who are we?

CAWAT is a Tanzanian local, women-based NGO created and registered in October 2014 (registration # ooNGO/00007534) as an exit strategy for Innovations in Gender Equality (IGE) to Promote Household Food Security program in Tanzania. IGE was a 4½ years’ program (Oct 2012 and March 2017), funded by USAID ($4.6mill) implemented by Land O’Lakes IDD Inc. from 2012 to 2014 and in collaboration with CAWAT from 2015. IGE set to address systemic constraints around women agricultural and household work burden and time expenditure as well as gender disparities in access to- and decision making to productive resources and benefit from their agricultural efforts.

Vision Statement

CAWAT’s vision is a Tanzanian society in which women and youth’s efforts in agriculture are recognized; benefit from their efforts; freely access to and equitably own and utilize household productive resources.  They are empowered to take leadership opportunities in agriculture for wealth creation and enhanced household food and nutrition security.

Mission Statement

CAWAT’s mission, inspired by rampant poverty, particularly in women attributable to discriminatory cultural practices that are skewed against women, addresses systemic constraints faced by women aimed at lifting them from extreme poverty; are treated with dignity and respect.  The mission is therefore to:

  1. Promote women-friendly agricultural technologies through solicitation, testing, developing and disseminating for adoption local solutions that address needs of farmers, with emphasis on needs of women farmers for reduced work drudgery in agricultural and household chore as well as those that facilitate household incomes, thus allowing women to realize greater contribution to wealth creation in Tanzania
  2. Improve knowledge of communities on issues critical to women’s empowerment
  3. Build women’s leadership capacity in agriculture to promote equality on household and community decision making; and women's participation in community leadership
  4. Raise awareness of communities on policies that promote gender equality