EnterpriseWorks Worldwide (EWW) has been awarded $400,000 for work in Guinea-Bissau and $543,000 for its program in the Philippines, both from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The new funding for Guinea-Bissau is in addition to $237,000 recently announced from the United States Government’s Economic Support Fund (ESF) and will extend the program through June 2005. EnterpriseWorks will use the funds to continue its efforts to expand the cashew processing industry by assisting small producers in processing techniques, facilitating a local equipment industry, and building new market linkages for export. So far the program has created more than 550 jobs – many of them for women and people with disabilities – and helped to boost international and regional trade in this West African post-conflict nation.

In the Philippines, EWW is addressing biodiversity threats by working with community groups to establish profitable enterprises that offer alternatives to environmentally unsustainable activities. The new funding will extend the program through September 2008. The Philippines has only 22% of the forest cover it had in 1900, and EWW programs work to counter this trend by building local capacity to respond to threats such as illegal logging, poaching and unsustainable harvesting. EWW will also promote replanting and agro-forestry techniques to increase incomes of local producers while improving forest cover.