7 March, 2019
International Women’s Day has become a worldwide rallying point to support the progression of women and girls’ rights across the world. This year International Women’s Day focuses on “Better the balance, better the world” and offers an opportunity to reflect on the role women play in agriculture and identify what can be done to harness this potential into viable businesses that create employment and address Africa’s food and nutrition challenges.
Between 2017 and 2018, the Graça Machel Trust (GMT) and its African Women in Agri-Business network (AWAB) worked on the African Food Basket Initiative in Malawi. This initiative illustrates how with the right resources, access to loans, and better skills; women can become major players in the agricultural sector in Africa.
Key to harnessing women’s potential in the agriculture value chain and upstream investments is improving their skills and access to finance and markets. Women have been part of the Africa’s agriculture fabric for time immemorial. They constitute 70% of Africa’s agricultural labour force. The challenge has been how to get more return on investment for women in agriculture given the mammoth task they face in building their businesses. The African Food Basket initiative goes a long way to illustrate the huge challenge that women in agribusiness face as they thrive to grow their businesses. These challenges include the limited access to working capital loans which then trickles down to limited productivity outputs due to the inability to access key production inputs that are essential to making their businesses successful and viable. This happens in a context where they lack affordable inputs, looming climate change, related water scarcity, as well as the challenges land tenure poses.
One of the AWAB members, Martha Nkhoma highlighted that before the initiative; “…no bank ever showed interest in lending me a business working capital loan because though I had worked for a long time as a civil servant, I had accumulated no assets of value to secure loans of significant value to grow and sustain my business.”
To address these challenges, GMT and AWAB convened a community of women-owned businesses and 1,000 smallholder farmers to partner together and work towards growing drought resistant seeds that would be sold to the market. The model assumes a partnership with smallholder farmer groups where farmers are advanced breeder and later certified seeds by the women owned seed companies, and upon harvest, the farmers pay back for the seed. The model also saw the women seeking team financing where their businesses worked together to negotiate a large loan and use that injection to grow their various businesses. The farmers also got various trainings to advance their knowledge in climate-smart agricultural practices.
A number of successes have been registered through this project that show that this approach works and if replicated in other parts of the African continent will see women championing food production on the continent. Over 10 women-owned seed companies were registered as legal entities in Malawi, and productivity increased from 800kg/hectare to 1500kg and 75% of this seed for example soya bean was certified. The women also managed to secure a team loan that will ensure the growth of their businesses.
As we commemorate International Women’s Day, there is an urgent need for governments and financial institutions to re-examine their policies to ensure that they are gender sensitive. The Trust calls for:
- Policy makers to clearly define, monitor, and give certainty to agricultural land use and make tenure favourable to women owning land.
- Water rights and usage regulations and laws should be clarified, particularly with regard to agricultural production to ensure that climate smart methods are used effectively.
- Financial institutions to develop products that cater for women in agribusiness so that they are not excluded from the system.
Women in agriculture are gamechangers that will play a critical role in addressing Africa’s food and nutrition challenges. For this to happen, better balance needs to exist when it comes to land ownership, and access to finance for women in agriculture on the African continent. The Graça Machel Trust calls for continued efforts from policymakers and financial institutions to ensure that access and resources do not limit the women’s potential.
For more information contact:
Gwadamirai Majange – gwadamiraim@gracamacheltrust.org
Sarah Mpata – sarahm@gracamacheltrust.org
Website: www.gracamacheltrust.org
Telephone: +27 (0) 11 325 0501/91
The Trust supports and mobilises civil society networks on issues of ending child marriage, ending violence against children, ending female genital mutilation and promoting children’s rights, to carry out advocacy and action across Africa. Special focus is placed on Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia where child marriage continues to be a problem largely driven by poverty, gender inequality, harmful traditional practices, conflict, low levels of literacy, limited opportunities for girls and weak or non-existent protective and preventive legal frameworks.
Education is a fundamental right for all children, which is also a vehicle for social, economic and political transformation in communities, countries and the African continent at large. Recent studies indicate a lack of progress in some of the critical commitments aimed at improving education quality, access, retention and achievement, particularly for girls. In most African countries, girls may face barriers to learning, especially when they reach post-primary levels of education. By implementing multi-dimensional approaches to education which includes core education, personal development, life skills and economic competencies, the Trust partners with funding partners, governments, civil societies and the private sector to improve education access.
The Nutrition and Reproductive, Maternal, New-born, Child and Adolescent Health and Nutrition, (RMNCAH+N) of the Children’s Rights and Development Programme aims at promoting the Global Strategy for women, children and adolescents’ health within the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) agenda. The strategy emphasises on the importance of effective country leadership as a common factor across countries making progress in improving the health of women, children and adolescents.
Through its Early Childhood Development (ECD) plan, The Trust will seek to put into action the new science and evidence Report that was presented by Lancet Series on Good and early development – the right of every child. This will be achieved by mobilising like-minded partners to contribute in the new science and evidence to reach all young children with ECD. The Trust’s goal is to be a catalyst for doing things differently, in particular, to rid fragmentation and lack of coordination across ECD sectors. In response to evidence showing the importance of political will in turning the tide against the current poor access and quality of ECD. Even before conception, starting with a mother’s health and social economic conditions, the early years of a child’s life form a fundamental foundation that determines whether a child will survive and thrive optimally.