The Nthanda Women Mushrooms Project, a significant three-year initiative, has been officially launched in Lilongwe, Malawi, by Nama Women Advancement (NAMA). Running from 2025 to 2028, this program is strategically designed to directly empower 900 rural Malawian women with crucial technical, financial, and entrepreneurial expertise in the profitable sector of mushroom cultivation. This endeavor marks a serious commitment to enhancing women’s economic and social standing while actively contributing to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Implemented in partnership with Zayane Creations Trust, the project is set to establish 45 women-led agricultural enterprises—at a rate of 15 per year—with each collective comprising 20 women. The scale of this intervention is expected to generate far-reaching benefits, indirectly supporting an estimated 4,500 individuals across the local communities, based on the average household size of five. Furthermore, the initiative includes the crucial development of five rural business centres intended to serve as hubs for stimulating localized economic growth and fostering stronger market linkages. The comprehensive training component will arm the women with essential skills in business planning, financial management, marketing, and market research, ensuring the sustainability of their agricultural products.
This strategic investment directly addresses the severe economic and social disparities faced by rural women in Malawi, a nation where 84% of the population relies on agriculture and over half live in poverty. These women frequently contend with limited access to education, economic opportunities, and constrained decision-making power within their households and communities. Mariam Al Hammadi, Director-General of NAMA, emphasized that the project is in clear alignment with Sharjah’s vision and the directives of H.H. Sheikha Jawaher bint Mohammed Al Qasimi to champion women’s global empowerment, particularly in areas facing acute economic adversity.
Al Hammadi stressed NAMA’s focus on sustainable development and investing in local potential, noting that long-term commitment delivers more profound and lasting impact than short-term fixes. The project is specifically engineered to yield both immediate and enduring results by strengthening female-led enterprises and their position in the market. Key projected economic outcomes include a significant increase in household income through improved production and market access, coupled with strengthening the women’s bargaining power in the marketplace. From an environmental perspective, the focus on drought-resilient irrigation for mushroom cultivation will promote environmental sustainability by reducing water usage.
The Nthanda project will also foster new agricultural value chains through innovation in processing and marketing, while simultaneously generating local employment opportunities via the construction of greenhouses and the expansion of the rural growth centres. By fostering this collaborative partnership, NAMA and Zayane Creations Trust aim to successfully integrate women into formal market systems, providing a clear pathway to continuous income generation and ensuring the potential for future enterprise growth. NAMA views the success of this initiative in Lilongwe as a replicable blueprint for scalable, transformative rural investment models across the region.
