Enabling women to benefit more equally from agrifood value chains
On average, women make up about 50 percent of the agricultural labour force in sub-Saharan Africa. However, they are often disadvantaged in their access to productive resources, markets and market information, financial services, technology, training, and
An FAO project is working to change this, by providing technical assistance and policy support to improve rural women’s access to local, national and global markets.
The project, which is part of the FAO Multipartner Programme Support Mechanism (FMM), directly supports female actors in rural small-scale value chains (for example, dairy in Kenya, Rwanda and Ethiopia; fisheries in Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Tunisia; and horticulture in Ethiopia), mainly through women’s associations, cooperatives, unions and farmers groups.
It also strengthens the women's capacities and skills through training, knowledge-sharing study tours and specific support aimed at improving market-oriented production and value addition, enterprise development, business-to-business linkages and access to finance.