CGE roundtable fosters exchange on gender equality in agrifood businesses and supply chains

Commit to Grow Equality (CGE) hosted its first private sector roundtable to facilitate peer-learning on business and supply chain initiatives that seek to improve women’s participation and productivity in agrifood systems. 

The meeting enabled an open exchange on tools, projects and investments being used by companies to advance gender equality, as well as challenges and mitigation strategies for gender-focused programmes. 

Participants included companies and foundations aligned with the principles of CGE, each bringing a unique perspective from their different vantage points within agrifood systems. 

Olam food ingredients (ofi) presented its global toolkit to help field teams improve women’s inclusion in their supply chains, while Danone Ecosystem explained its work to integrate women’s empowerment into projects, focusing on dairy value chains in Nigeria, India and North Africa. Unilever presented the company’s Gender Equity Assessment Tool, designed to help mainstream gender equality across the company’s sustainable business initiatives.

“Success for the CGE initiative means moving the needle for women across a range of issues, such as wages, working conditions, and access to land or finance,” said Lauren Phillips, Deputy Director, Rural Transformation and Gender Equality Division, FAO. “We want to leverage the ongoing efforts of CGE’s private sector partners as learning and accountability opportunities to catalyze change across the sector more broadly.”   

The group also discussed potential CGE focus areas, such as defining a joint learning and evaluation agenda to measure productivity increases and understand the social dividend of improved women’s equality; fostering a platform to share gender tools and project work; and mobilizing partnerships and resources.

CGE partners include governments, United Nations agencies, multilateral development banks, private sector actors, civil society organizations, research institutions and philanthropic foundations. Partners join CGE by selecting alignment actions from the CGE Commitments Matrix based on their strategic priorities. 

The roundtable meeting took place on 16 October 2025 at FAO headquarters in Rome on the sidelines of the Hand-in-Hand Initiative Investment Forum, one of the three pillars of the annual World Food Forum. 

CGE also supported a thematic session on the business case for investing in women and youth organized within the Investment Forum on 15 October 2025.