ABERA: Accelerating Business to Empower Rural women in Agriculture
Rural women play a vital role in sustaining rural economies, yet they are a largely underserved market and face disproportionate challenges due to climate change. Businesses are leaving value untapped when rural women are underrepresented as employees, suppliers, customers, and community leaders. And what is usually holding them back is a lack of understanding around the business case of serving rural women.
CGAP and IDH are on a mission to elevate gender-inclusive and climate-smart approaches in agriculture and rural contexts and measure their impact on business performance. By bridging the gap between businesses and rural women, we aim to unlock new opportunities for growth and resilience.
ABERA aims to generate practical models and concrete guidance for stakeholders in the rural economy to better reach and serve women with business-driven solutions that improve their livelihoods and resilience to climate change. It also aims to accelerate the adoption and scale of business models that meaningfully improve the livelihoods and resilience of rural women in the face of climate change.
IDH and CGAP have joined forces to create a roadmap for businesses that want to be bold, build evidence, generate buy-in, and create allies in this journey towards gender transformative business.
ABERA’s goals:
- Amplify the role that financial and agriculture service providers play in increasing rural women’s climate resilience.
- Clearly articulate the business case for serving rural women with climate-smart services.
- Provide best practices and technical guidance to financial and agriculture service providers that maximize value for women, companies, and shareholders in the face of climate change.
Building rural women’s resilience and livelihoods
Over the years, CGAP has worked with several financial and agricultural service to strengthen rural women’s resilience and livelihoods. Building on this experience, CGAP and IDH are currently working with a range of providers to bolster business performance while also meeting their gender and climate goals.
