AGRA

Nairobi, 8 March 2021 – The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) hosted leading African women, to explore how their unique platforms could help amplify the needs of women in agriculture across the continent.

H.E. Amb. Josefa Sacko, Commissioner for Rural Economy & Agriculture, African Union (AU) Commission joined Dr. Agnes Kalibata, President at AGRA and UN Special Envoy on Food Systems Summit and other African women leaders from various fields to discuss how women could bring change to Africa’s agriculture and food systems. The discussions also explored how to inspire a groundswell of successful women agribusinesses in the continent.

The discussions were in line with this year’s IWD theme – Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world. 

H.E. Amb. Josefa Sacko, the keynote speaker at the event, reiterated African Union’s goal of gender equality as a fundamental human right and an integral part of regional integration, economic growth and social development. She highlighted the AU’s strategy for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (GEWE) to ensure the inclusion of women in Africa’s development agenda.

Participants echoed that women are key players in the sector, amplifying the need for exploring how their organizations can not only help amplify the needs of women in agriculture and women across the continent, but also finding solutions to endemic inequalities in the sector that continue to undermine women’s capacity to respond and recover from the impact of COVID-19. To meet some of these challenges, AGRA kicked off the Resilience Investment Series for Women Executives (ARISE) program. The program seeks to seeks to equip women-owned and women-led SMEs with the necessary tools and practical management skills, needed to recover from the impact of COVID-19 pandemic.

Speaking at a fireside chat at the event, Dr. Kalibata stressed the effects of the climate change coupled with inequalities in accessing land and other agricultural resources that undermine women’s capacity to respond and recover from the impact of this pandemic. Furthermore, the gendered access to opportunities means that women and men have different resources available to them to prepare for, cope with, and recover from the crisis.  

The event was sponsored by AGRA’s VALUE4HER program, a platform whose aim is to increase incomes and employment opportunities for women by linking women-led agribusinesses with competitive high value regional and global markets, and improving women business leader’s technical and managerial skills, with training on market dynamics, to grow their agribusinesses further. Join the VALUE4HER digital platform – https://value4her.hivebrite.com/

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For more information, please contact: Ms. Sabdiyo Dido, Head of Gender and Inclusiveness, AGRA at sdido@agra.org

About AGRA

Established in 2006, AGRA is an African-led and Africa-based institution that puts smallholder farmers at the center of the continent’s growing economy by transforming agriculture from a solitary struggle to survive into farming as a business that thrives. 

Together with our partners, we catalyse and sustain inclusive agriculture transformation to increase the incomes and improve food security for 30 million farming households in 11 African countries by 2021.