In Ghana’s northern regions, one of the four outputs of GSLERP is to restore degraded shea parklands through public-private partnerships that empower women across the shea value chain. With support from private sector funding,17 NGO implementing partners and 5 seedling suppliers, over 6,000 women within the GLSERP have received training in cultivation, business and cooperative management, and quality control. Infrastructure upgrades have also improved processing and working conditions.

As a result, these women are restoring land, strengthening cooperatives, accessing international markets, and increasing incomes through higher-value products. Their work is not only changing landscapes—it’s also creating positive impacts in women’s empowerment, livelihoods and well-being.

Since April 2025, with support from the UN-REDD Programme, GSLERP has also been working closely with the Global Shea Alliance, UNDP, and other partners to implement the W+ Standard, becoming one of the first Green Climate Fund projects to do so.  Created by WOCAN in 2014, the W+ Standard provides GSLERP with a powerful tool, enabling it to measure and quantify improvements in women’s lives in a transparent and quantifiable manner.  

From livelihoods to well-being, the W+ Standard helps track real change in women’s lives and communities as a result of implementing activities through this Green Climate Fund-financed project.  It also provides the opportunity for the GSLERP to give a monetary value to its results, potentially creating a new channel to direct financial resources to women. It’s not just about planting trees; it’s about planting hope and opportunities for women who are involved in the shea value chain.   

Under the GLSERP, the W+ Standard is focusing on measuring the project’s impacts on supporting knowledge and education and improving income and assets of female project beneficiaries.  Through use of the W+ Standard, women’s progress won’t just be seen but will also be valued.

As Hajia Rabiatu Abukari, Director of Ripples Ghana, a member of the Global Shea Alliance, so poignantly highlights, “we are currently working hard to make shea butter for food consumption…it is important for the women to be involved because the income we get from these activities is used to take care of the children, their education, livelihoods, family matters, and more.” The ripple effect of empowering women within the GSLERP is not just seen in the women’s lives but also that of their communities and families.

Helping GSLERP activities to go beyond business as usual by quantifying the project’s women’s empowerment results, the W+ results will be verified by October 2025. These findings will show how GSLERP is creating systemic, catalytic, and transformational change in women’s lives through climate action. The journey doesn’t end here; it affirms and strengthens a recognition of the value women bring to the shea value chain.

Training sessions with women learning new skills on shea cropping.