March is Gender in Agriculture month on Agrilinks, and we at Advancing Women’s Empowerment (AWE) are excited to participate in and advance the conversation throughout the month!

For this year’s Gender in Agriculture month, AWE will focus on engaging the private sector to promote equity and inclusion. The benefits of investing in women are clear. Organizations that engage women create cultures that produce higher productivity, retention, engagement, morale and innovation, making investment in women in business imperative. Empowering women as workers, suppliers and distributors in a targeted way allows firms to tap into a wider pool of talent and capacity, leading to a stronger workforce and more reliable networks and sales channels. 

Development donors and the private sector are taking notice of the direct costs of leaving women, youth and other vulnerable groups out of supply chains, market opportunities, and their workplaces, while seeing returns on their investment to inclusion, protection against violence, and positive norms change. But while investing in women can clearly advance private sector interests, we still have a lot to learn about the most effective ways for engaging women — as well as youth and other vulnerable groups — in many of the markets where USAID works, what approaches are most effective and how we can build the most productive relationships with the private sector in the process. 

The AWE project is advancing this conversation by capturing, translating and disseminating evidence of practices promoting improved agriculture systems outcomes and women’s empowerment. One of the ways AWE is doing this is through its Virtual Learning Series, “Increasing Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture and Market Systems through Co-Creation and Private Sector Engagement.” AWE has implemented two activities under the virtual learning series — a kickoff webinar and the first learning burst. Two additional learning bursts and a series wrap-up are still to come!

Throughout the month of March, we will raise awareness about the benefits of working with the private sector for inclusive development outcomes, share learning about practices for creating alignment with and developing productive partnerships between development and private sector partners, and explore ways to measure and generate evidence on how equity and inclusion strengthen businesses and market systems for all.

In March, please join AWE and its implementing partners, EnCompass, ACDI/VOCA, MarketShare Associates, and FHI 360, in raising awareness about this important issue. We will explore these topics by sharing learning through blogs and a variety of research and learning resources.

Interested in getting involved?

There are four ways you can get involved in Gender in Agriculture month: 

1. Upload a blog post about engaging the private sector! Write a blog post sharing good practices, thought leadership, research or success stories on engaging with the private sector to promote equity and inclusion in agriculture and market systems development programming. 

2. Sign up to receive updates from the AWE Virtual Learning Series here.

3. Share an event. Host an event on engaging with the private sector to promote equity and inclusion in agriculture and market systems development and post it in Agrilinks’ event listing!

4. Follow Agrilinks on Facebook and Twitter. Agrilinks will be sharing posts on promoting equity and inclusion in agriculture and market systems throughout the month!

We’re looking forward to hearing from our community on new ideas, tools, and resources!