About CECI
Who Are We?
CECI is an international organization that works with its partners to advance inclusive and sustainable economies, where women and young people fully exercise their rights and leadership in economic opportunities, climate change adaptation, education, and health.
With over 65 years of experience across more than 30 countries, CECI co-creates inclusive, locally grounded innovations and scales them to foster shared and sustainable prosperity.
Vision
We are building a future where women and young people thrive in inclusive, peaceful communities that foster shared prosperity and lasting well-being.
Mission
Together with our partners, we work to strengthen economic opportunities for women and young people in a sustainable way and promote the full realization of the rights of women and girls.
CECI is an international organization with a presence in 17 countries in Africa, Asia and the Americas working to support communities in developing sustainable systems.
Our Presence
CECI in Numbers
12
offices around the world
67
years of activity
Over 350
projects in more than 30 countries
Over 400
partner organizations
440+
employees and volunteers around the globe
Areas of impact and foundation
Our actions are structured around two areas of impact and a foundation that reflect our vision of a more just, prosperous, and united world. These areas are interdependent, intersecting and reinforcing each other to multiply the long-term impact of our actions.
Impact Area 1 : Sustainable and inclusive economies
CECI works with its partners to build sustainable and inclusive economies driven by the leadership of women and young people.
Our actions support entrepreneurial growth and the creation of equitable economic opportunities by promoting training, entrepreneurship, and access to inclusive finance. They support the deployment of climate and biodiversity solutions that strengthen resilience and food security, while promoting an inclusive and sustainable business ecosystem based on economic justice and environmental sustainability.
Impact Area 2 : Women's and girls' rights
CECI works to guarantee the rights of women and girls through a transformative, gender-responsive, and intersectional approach.
Our actions aim to support the right to health and physical integrity, the right to education and participation, and to support women's rights movements that transform social, political, and economic norms. By strengthening the voice, agency, and leadership of women and girls, CECI contributes to lasting structural change based on justice, equality, and dignity.
Foundational Principles: Inclusive Governance and Humanitarian Action
Inclusive governance and humanitarian action are the cross-cutting foundations of CECI's approach. They aim to create the conditions for sustainable stability, inclusive peace, and collective resilience, which are essential to systemic transformations. CECI supports citizen participation and institutional accountability by supporting governance processes rooted in transparency, justice, and trust among different actors.
Our programs strengthen social cohesion and dialogue, particularly in fragile or crisis contexts, while supporting local and integrated humanitarian responses that promote community resilience and sustainable recovery.
Our approaches
A gender-transformative approach
Addresses the root causes of inequality in social norms and power relations by actively supporting collective dynamics for the defense of rights and promoting the full participation of women in decision-making spaces.
Strategic, locally based partnerships
Based on long-term relationships with public institutions, research and private sector organizations, civil society organizations and networks, and traditional institutions. These partnerships are founded on trust, reciprocity, and recognition of local knowledge. Through a participatory approach, this learning process promotes the co-construction of locally led solutions and globally valued and provides a solid foundation for ownership and sustainability of impacts.
A systemic approach
Designs programming actions to be levers for change at the political and institutional ecosystem level. By building on lessons learned and promoting replicable solutions with the potential for scaling up, this approach contributes to sustainable structural transformations built on the leadership of women, young peoples, and local organizations.
A continuous learning and knowledge mobilization approach
Places innovation, learning, and research at the heart of our actions. Learning comes from the experience of our partners and programs, our research, and our results measurement system. These learning and knowledgesharing practices are evidence-based and fuel continuous improvement in project management, volunteering, consulting services, and advocacy.
Our levers for impact
These impact levers reflect CECI’s ambition to respond to transformation challenges with flexibility, contextual relevance, and complementary approaches, while promoting its expertise to multiple types of partners, including in multilateral spaces.
Program design and implementation
The historical foundation of CECI, the design and implementation of programs in partnership with local actors, are the cornerstones of our work. These programs are co-constructed with partners and institutions (public, private, academics, and civil society) that support communities. They generate results in areas
of impact and serve as a basis for knowledge production and advocacy. The integration of digital tools and artificial intelligence—for data analysis, monitoring and evaluation, and the community participation in the programming cycle—also enhances the quality, effectiveness, and reach of our programs.
Advocacy
This lever is activated in partnership with academic and research institutions, local organizations, the private sector, and communities. Our gender-responsive result measurement framework fuels a dynamic of continuous learning. Based on the knowledge gained from our research and learning, we collaborate with our partners to scale up impactful solutions. We facilitate processes of dialogue and sharing of innovative practices, and we advocate based on evidence and concrete experience.
Volunteer cooperation
A hallmark of CECI, voluntary cooperation is central to building relationships between people and organizations and contributes to lasting change. It opens opportunities for learning
and reciprocity and enables the concrete engagement of people who want to contribute in solidarity to inclusive and sustainable economies for women and youth, and to the advancement of women’s and girls’ rights. By mobilizing a variety of expertise from Canada and other countries, it contributes to solutions adapted to different contexts, to experimenting with innovative practices, and to bringing about lasting change.
Consulting services and technical assistance
This lever aims to deploy CECI’s expertise to governments, development institutions, and the private sector to help expand inclusive and sustainable economic opportunities and realize the rights of women and girls.
Consulting services focus on program design and implementation, scaling up innovative solutions, and policy and institutional reform, considering the integration of a gender-transformative approach. They are based on concrete experiences from programs and volunteer cooperation, as well as proven results. Ultimately, this lever will also contribute to diversifying funding sources, while positioning CECI as a key player in relation to priority regional needs.
Our Financial Partners
