Skip to main content
Feed the Future
This project is part of the U.S. Government's global hunger and food security initiative.
  • About
subscribe

Agrilinks

Search Log In

Main Menu

  • Topics
  • Events
  • Activities
  • Tools & Training
  • Members
  • About
subscribe

"Empowering Market Actors" Learning Series: Gender and Social Inclusion

profile image of Kaitlin Lesnick profile image of Karis McGill

Kaitlin Lesnick

Karis McGill

Jun 25, 2019
Woman working in a food processing company
Photo credit: Will Boase for RTI International

In Rwanda, 72,000 agricultural small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) present a major opportunity to effect change in the sector and spur broad-based economic growth inclusive of smallholder farmers. Over the past five years, the USAID/Rwanda Private Sector Driven Agricultural Growth project (PSDAG) has explored, developed, and refined its multi-pronged approaches to helping increase smallholder incomes by promoting private sector investment in Rwanda.

The cornerstone of PSDAG’s success in improving local private sector partners’ market viability has been a US$5 million Value Chain Competitiveness Fund (VCCF), through which the project identified SME partners and provided co-investment grants that allow them to invest in technology upgrades and strengthen relationships between themselves, producers, investors, and financial institutions. The VCCF was utilized to reduce risk and accelerate private sector investment; help partners pilot new technologies and business models; support capacity building via knowledge transfer; facilitate increased access to finance in the sector; and enable SMEs and associations to strengthen organizational and advocacy skills. PSDAG has partnered with over 50 SMEs, 92 cooperatives, and four civil society associations to address their investment and advocacy challenges.

Through this five-part Agrilinks Learning Series, we will share some of our key thinking, processes, and lessons learned related to Cooperative Professionalization, Access to Finance, Social Inclusion, Business Development Services, and Public-Private Dialogue. We hope that donors, governments, and partners will find these learnings useful as they design and implement their own efforts moving forward.

Gender and Social Inclusion

Agriculture is a main source of employment, income, and nutrition for women, youth, and persons with disabilities (PWD) in Rwanda. Despite these groups’ prevalence in Rwandan agriculture, issues such as lack of control over land, lack of access to credit, and an inability to ascend to leadership positions within families, cooperatives, associations, and other entities remain barriers to their equitable and profitable engagement in the sector. PSDAG interventions endeavored to ameliorate those constraints and capitalize on women, youth, and PWD-specific opportunities through a number of independent but mutually reinforcing Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) activities.

The attached PSDAG Learning Brief highlights the key takeaways from our December 2018 convening of stakeholders in Kigali, Rwanda, and summarizes PSDAG’s approach to increasing gender, youth, and PWD inclusion, its challenges, and its results.

Click the image to read the Learning Brief

Read other "Empowering Market Actors" posts covering:

  • Cooperative Professionalization

  • Public-Private Dialogue

  • Access to Finance

  • Business Development Services

Filed Under: Agricultural Productivity Education and Extension Markets and Trade Gender Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning Youth

Comments

Part of the Activity

USAID/Rwanda Private Sector Driven Agricultural Growth (PSDAG) Project

Related Resources

USAID/PSDAG Learning Brief: Gender and Social Inclusion270.27 KB

You May Also Like

post

"Empowering Market Actors" Learning Series: Access to Finance

In this new five-part series, the USAID/Rwanda PSDAG project shares thinking and lessons learned on a range of topics.

profile image of Kaitlin Lesnick profile image of Karis McGill

Kaitlin Lesnick

Karis McGill

Jun 21, 2019
post

"Empowering Market Actors" Learning Series: Public-Private Dialogue

In this new five-part series, the USAID/Rwanda PSDAG project shares thinking and lessons learned on a range of topics.

profile image of Kaitlin Lesnick profile image of Karis McGill

Kaitlin Lesnick

Karis McGill

Jul 03, 2019
post

"Empowering Market Actors" Learning Series: Business Development Services

In this new five-part series, the USAID/Rwanda PSDAG project shares thinking and lessons learned on a range of topics.

profile image of Kaitlin Lesnick profile image of Karis McGill

Kaitlin Lesnick

Karis McGill

Jul 11, 2019
post

"Empowering Market Actors" Learning Series: Cooperative Professionalization

In this new five-part series, the USAID/Rwanda PSDAG project shares thinking and lessons learned on a range of topics.

profile image of Kaitlin Lesnick profile image of Karis McGill

Kaitlin Lesnick

Karis McGill

Jun 10, 2019
Follow Agrilinks:
  • Youtube
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • RSS
Agrilinks
Achieving agriculture-led food security through knowledge sharing
MarketLinks
Market-based solutions for development
LearningLab
A collaborative learning community of development professionals
Landlinks
USAID's knowledge sharing platform focused on land tenure and property rights
Climatelinks
A global knowledge portal for climate change & development practitioners
Urbanlinks
USAID’s sharing platform for resources on sustainable urban development
Resiliencelinks
A global knowledge platform for resilience practitioners
Globalwaters
Sharing knowledge and ideas to solve global water and sanitation challenges
U.S. Agency for International Development
  • Accessibility
  • Contact
  • Help
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
The information provided on this website is not official U.S. government information and does not represent the views or positions of the U.S. Agency for International Development or the U.S. Government.

Search Agrilinks

My Account

  • My drafts and published content
  • My profile
Sign out

Contribute To Agrilinks

  • Add a post
  • Add an event
Need help?

Subscribe

Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter featuring the latest and greatest Agrilinks content.

You'll also receive invitations to upcoming Agrilinks webinars and other special announcements. We won't share your email address and you can unsubscribe at any time.