International Finance Corporation (IFC)
Access to Finance/Gender Finance Project in South Sudan and Liberia
Working as an IFC knowledge management and communications specialist, Dina Towbin provided communications services for an Access to Finance project in South Sudan and Liberia. South Sudan, the world’s newest country, had known only war for more than 50 years.
This high-profile program was designed to increase access to finance and market opportunities for women entrepreneurs in the two countries. She worked for the Gender Finance in Fragile and Conflict States Program.
Ms. Towbin achieved the following milestones during her short tenure in an extremely challenging environment:
- Developing the South Sudan communications strategy plan for the IFC
- Producing customized communication materials
- Creating the program’s first-ever monthly newsletters
- Integrated gender into a new IFC agribusiness program for South Sudan
- Developing a series of Smart Lessons that were published in the IFC SmartBook for the 2013 IFC Fragile and Conflict States contest
- Winning an award for one of the Smart Lessons
Communications Management
Ms. Towbin also organized and conducted strategic planning and marketing training for the South Sudan Chamber of Women Entrepreneurs. This training ultimately allowed the committee worked to grow its membership and provide better services and training to its members. Ms. Towbin spent many hours listening to the women’s stories of tragedy and hardship.
