#AskAg Twitter Chat: Women in Cross-Border Agricultural Trade
Event Information
Please join us for a discussion on how increasing opportunities for women in cross-border agricultural trade can open new pathways to economic growth, food security, and poverty reduction in developing countries. Participate on Twitter by using the hashtag #AskAg.
Gender and food security experts Deborah Rubin of Cultural Practice, LLC and Caren Grown of USAID’s Bureau for Policy, Planning, and Learning will respond to your questions and comments. In addition, @Agrilinks will encourage open discussion from participants.
How to participate
- If you are new to Twitter, visit Twitter.com to sign up for an account. (For more tips on getting started, check out our Twitter 101 Training.)
- Submit questions to @Agrilinks prior to the chat to help frame the discussion. (You can also submit questions by commenting on this page.)
- Join us on November 1 at 12:00 pm EDT by following @Agrilinks and the hashtag #AskAg.
Even if you don't have an account, you can still participate in the event! Follow the #AskAg livestream here.
Discussion topic
The USAID Enabling Agricultural Trade (EAT) project has partnered with Cultural Practice, LLC to develop a policy brief, “Women in Cross-Border Agricultural Trade,” that explores the unique challenges faced by women in cross-border agricultural trade. Security, mobility, and service delivery constraints can disproportionately limit women’s access to markets, particularly markets across borders. Increasing opportunities for formal cross-border agricultural trade by women has the potential to generate economic growth and increase food security while reducing poverty among vulnerable households.
The brief sets forth three guiding principles for donors and policymakers seeking to integrate gender considerations into trade reform activities. First, women’s rights to security, privacy, and equal treatment in the border process must be established and protected. Second, public policy should promote increased market opportunities for women traders. Third, the policy-planning process should be designed to ensure that the voices of women traders are heard.
Please join us for a lively discussion of how these critical aspects of the agribusiness enabling environment (AgBEE) can be improved for women traders.
About the EAT project
The Enabling Agricultural Trade (EAT) project, funded by USAID, supports the U.S. government’s global efforts to create conditions for agriculture-led growth. USAID established EAT based on substantial academic and field experience suggesting that a sound legal, regulatory, and institutional environment is a pre-requisite to economic growth in the agricultural sector. EAT offers policy analysis and support for the implementation of AgBEE reforms that encourage business start-up and growth across the agricultural sector. Visit our project website at www.eatproject.org.
Questions on how to participate? Contact us at [email protected] or at @Agrilinks on Twitter.
Speakers
Caren Grown
USAID Bureau of Policy Planning and Learning
Caren Grown is Senior Gender Advisor in the Bureau of Policy, Planning and Learning, where she leads USAID’s efforts to integrate gender equality and female empowerment throughout the agency’s policies and programs. Dr. Grown is on leave as Economist-In-Residence at American University, where she also co-directed the Program on Gender Analysis in Economics. Formerly, she was Senior Scholar and Co-Director of the Gender Equality and Economy Program at The Levy Economics Institute at Bard College and Director of the Poverty Reduction and Economic Governance team at the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW). She is the author of several books on gender issues in trade, public finance, and development, and her articles have appeared in World Development, Journal of International Development, Feminist Economics, Health Policy and Planning, and The Lancet.
Deborah Rubin
Cultural Practice LLC
Dr. Deborah Rubin is co-owner of Cultural Practice, LLC, a woman-owned small business founded in 2000 that provides technical advice on development programs and policies. Dr. Rubin has led efforts to improve gender integration in USAID programs and policies, as team leader for multiple multi-sectoral gender assessments and the only full gender audit in Africa as well as conducting numerous gender trainings. She led the development of a methodology for integrating gender into agricultural value chains for USAID, producing the handbook, "Promoting Gender Equitable Opportunities in Agricultural Value Chains." She has continued and expanded on this work as a contributor to the IFPRI-ILRI "Gender, Agriculture, and Assets Project." She currently leads a team developing a knowledge management platform for the Collaborative Research Support Programs, compiling and analyzing the results of 30-plus years of USAID-funded agricultural research grants (crsps.net). Dr. Rubin has been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship, a MacArthur Foundation Research and Writing award, a Rockefeller Foundation Agriculture and Rural Development Postdoctoral Fellowship, and an AAAS Diplomacy Fellowship at USAID's Office of Agriculture. She has conducted long-term field work in Tanzania and Kenya.