Relating to your question 2, sub-question on the private sector, I recently found a contribution by Tom Wilson, Chairman and chief executive officer of the All state Corporation and vice chairman of the US Chamber of Commerce, who states: " for decades, corporations have been expected to concentrate on one mission: maximizing profits or shareholders. This single minded focus on profits is largely due to Milton Friedman, Noble Prize winning economist. In his 1962 book "Capitalism and Freedom", Friedman declared " There is one and only one social responsibility of business .... to increase its profits." That argument has shaped the thinking of business leaders and created the corporations we have today".  According to Wilson, the emphasis on profits has widened the trust gap between corporations  and society... " (Washington Post, 29 September 2016). 

This single focus on profits is still present in many companies, we try to convince of gender equity. However, they simply do not see the evidence that women can contribute to their profits. 

Secondly, a framework used by the "Making markets work for the poor (M4P) approach", is the "will-skill" framework, which is useful in identifying which player you might partner with and the nature of support required to change their behaviour. A prospective partner needs the incentives and capacity to change. Private sector partners are the most difficult to change if they have neither the incentive nor the capacity to change.  If companies have their focus on profits only, they may not have the incentive, and often they also do not know how to go about engaging rural women as active actors. 

According to Wilson, "the corporation of the next 100 years must take on social problems. On their own, governments, social service and charitable organisations simply do not have the capabilities and resources to solve problems, such as inadequate education and poverty. And most people agree: in a recent survey, 87 percent of young Americans said corporations should do more than just make money. "