Blog African women entrepreneurs driving change in agriculture
The 2024 Women’s Investment Forum in Dakar, Senegal was an opportune gathering to showcase, celebrate and support African women entrepreneurs who are making transformative progress in the agriculture sector, including those who have participated in CGIAR accelerator programs such as AICCRA’s Gender-Smart Accelerator Challenge.
By: Fatimata Kone, Marine Atadokpede, Ouma Sani, Ena Derenoncourt
In Africa, agriculture is the beating heart of the economy and food security, employing a large portion of the population and significantly contributing to the GDP of countries. Women play a central role, producing up to 80% of foodstuffs for domestic consumption and local markets. They are the guardians of the entire value chain, from production to marketing. However, despite their invaluable contributions, they face major obstacles that hinder their full entrepreneurial potential.
Some of these challenges include limited access to land, financial resources, and markets, as well as a lack of tailored technical assistance and business development services. Additionally, women entrepreneurs often encounter systemic barriers such as gender-based discrimination, unequal access to information, and exclusion from decision-making processes. This lack of access results in women relying on less efficient and outdated traditional practices, preventing them from fully capitalizing on modern advancements. These obstacles are further exacerbated by the impacts of climate change, which disproportionately affect women due to their roles in managing natural resources and ensuring household food security.
Recognizing these challenges, Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) has taken deliberate steps to support women entrepreneurs in agriculture. Through its gender and climate-smart acceleration programs, AICCRA aims to strengthen the capacity of women-led agri-businesses to adopt climate-smart practices, access financing opportunities, and build resilience to climate change. These programs not only provide technical assistance but also create spaces for peer learning and collaboration, fostering a empowering network for women entrepreneurs to share experiences, strategies, and solutions.
In this context, AICCRA, in partnership with the Women’s Investment Club (WIC), organized a series of events on the side of the Women’s Investment Forum (Forum de l'Investissement au Féminin) held in November in Dakar, Senegal. The Forum aims to unite entrepreneurs, investors, support organizations, and the broader public to exchange ideas, share experiences, and collaborate on critical issues related to entrepreneurship and access to funding. The side events organized with AICCRA provided a platform for women entrepreneurs, particularly those who had participated in various CGIAR-led accelerators, to exchange insights on their journey, discuss the challenges they face, and explore strategies for overcoming them.
