Deadline: 25-Sep-2025
UN Women invites qualified civil society organizations to participate in the Women’s Economic Empowerment Innovation Grants initiative, aiming to strengthen women’s economic empowerment in public marketplaces through an inclusive, community-driven pilot.
The opportunity focuses on equitable access to services and infrastructure, entrepreneurship and business growth, inclusive governance and policy advocacy, gender-responsive procurement, blended financing and sustainability models, and a Leave No One Behind approach prioritizing women with disabilities and underserved communities.
The Women-led Impact Market Lab addresses the systemic challenges faced by women vendors in Timor-Leste’s informal marketplaces, where women continue to face barriers in accessing decent work, formal economic sectors, and decision-making roles. The initiative aims to pilot a locally grounded and community-driven model that empowers women vendors and entrepreneurs to identify, design, and implement practical solutions to these barriers. The Lab will conduct participatory gender-responsive needs assessments in municipal markets to gather community-led insights on safety, infrastructure, economic marginalization, and exclusion.
The project will support women-led ideas through seed funding, coaching, and capacity-building to improve market conditions and entrepreneurial opportunities, within a budget range for this proposal of USD 25,000.00. Additionally, it will foster inclusive governance by engaging women vendors’ groups and strengthening their collective voice with local authorities. Micro-scale interventions such as improved signage, basic storage, water access, sanitation, and safety infrastructure will be piloted in consultation with local market users.
Throughout the five-month project timeline, the implementing partner will document lessons and develop an Inclusive Market Toolkit to guide replication in other municipalities. The Lab represents an innovative, small-scale pilot designed to generate evidence and learning for gender-responsive public infrastructure, procurement, and local economic governance with a focus on decent work and entrepreneurship for women vendors in Timor-Leste.
For more information, visit UN Women.
