President of Finland Visits UN Women-Led Market Project in Tanzania, Highlights Power of Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships

On 16 May 2025, the President of the Republic of Finland, Alexander Stubb, visited the Machinga Complex in Dar es Salaam to meet with women market traders and local government leaders benefiting from the Women’s Leadership and Economic Rights (WLER) Project. The initiative, implemented by UN Women in partnership with the Government of Tanzania, supported by the Government of Finland, aims to advance women’s economic empowerment and leadership at the grassroots level.

The President, accompanied by the First Lady, Suzanne Innes-Stubb, and a high-level delegation including Members of Parliament from Finland, met with women entrepreneurs and elected leaders who shared how the WLER Project has transformed their economic and leadership trajectories through training in financial literacy, entrepreneurship, and knowledge on balancing care work responsibilities.

Implemented across six regions and 18 local authorities in Tanzania, the WLER Project aims to advance women’s meaningful participation in leadership and economic life at the local level. 

Now in its final year, capacity building support has led to over 1,060 women securing leadership positions in the 2024 local government elections. Women beneficiaries have also been facilitated access to interest-free loans through the project’s partnerships with local government authorities, and over 600 women in the Mtwara region have been supported to register land in their names.

UN Women Representative, Ms. Hodan Addou, highlighted the strategic importance of the Machinga Complex, home to over 3,000 women traders, as a key site for implementing the WLER project. 

"Through this initiative, women have gained access to capital and new markets beyond the Complex, while also building knowledge on leadership and gender rights," she said. 

Since 2023, the Women’s Leadership and Economic Rights (WLER) Project has equipped women market traders with training in transformational leadership, financial literacy, and unpaid care, leading to a significant rise in women’s representation. Women now hold key positions in the market, including the Treasurer of the Main Market, and in what was previously unprecedented, seven women, including one with a disability were elected to the corridor leadership team. Their growing economic power has spurred the formation of savings and investment groups, enabling access to interest-free government loans. 

In 2024 alone, seven women-led groups formalized their businesses and secured loans totaling TZS 548 million (approximately USD 204,000), driving business growth and market expansion. The project has also prioritized safe, violence-free workplaces and the equitable distribution of unpaid care work, enabling women to scale their enterprises and thrive in more supportive, gender-responsive environments

President Stubb commended the project as a strong example of multi-stakeholder collaboration to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment, citing the successful partnerships between the Governments of Finland and Tanzania, women entrepreneurs, women leaders, and UN Women.

Minister of Community Development, Gender, Women and Special Groups, Dr. Dorothy Gwajima, commended the project’s initiative to empower women in the market, noting that support to women traders at the Machinga Complex reflects Tanzania’s strong commitment to the Generation Equality Forum agenda to support women in the informal sector.

The visit, undertaken as part of the President of Finland’s 3-day state visit to Tanzania, underscored the tangible impact of investing in women’s leadership and economic rights, not only in transforming marketplaces like Machinga, but in fostering inclusive, community-driven development across the country.