NAIROBI, Kenya — “Women’s rights are human rights, and empowering women and girls isn’t just the right thing to do, it also makes economic sense.” These strong words from international development group Devex headline their recent SheBuilds campaign, a month-long development discussion regarding female empowerment in all sectors of society.
Starting March 14, Devex is highlighting women’s contributions to economic growth and exploring “opportunities for women to formally participate in local and global economies–as bank account holders, farmers, small business owners and more.” In conjunction with recognition of 2014 as the International Year of Family Farming, a portion of this campaign focuses on female farmers and financial literacy.
Smallholder farmers produce nearly 80 percent of consumed goods in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia every year, making them one of the most prominent factors in global food production. Moreover, about half of these 500 million smallholder farmers are women. Women tend to carry the yoke in agricultural labor, yet do not have the skills or access to such skills needed to produce optimal yields. According to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO), “[Women] could produce [20-30 percent] more food than they do now… if they had the same access to agricultural resources and services as men,” report Devex.
The World Food Programme estimates that there are 870 million chronically hungry people in our world today, with half of those living in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Given this staggering statistic and an exponentially growing global population, the extra agricultural yield that women could produce is absolutely imperative. Without it, we are on a “collision course” of deforestation and slash-and-burn style farming in order to meet the projected food demands of a 9.6 billion global population in 2050. “But helping women raise yields on existing cropland,” says Devex, “has the potential to shift that trajectory significantly.”
Devex believes that financial literacy is the key for women farmers. Not only does empowering women financially benefit the women themselves, but also brings a high social return to the entire community and beyond. Strengthening women’s ability to manage more of the household income translates into “better educated, better nourished children and more prosperous communities.”
Several organizations work in cooperation with Devex to promote financial literacy and access to financial services. The Rainforest Alliance works with farmers around the world to encourage sustainable practices, improve financial investments and promote efficiency and productivity. Their Sustainable Finance Initiative was created to support smallholder farmers working toward Rainforest alliance Certification. While the Alliance does not directly lend money, it supports farmers by “helping to identify their financial needs, drafting borrower profiles, supporting them with business and financial management technical assistance, and linking them with the appropriate financial institutions.”
Devex is also leading its own financial literacy project in 2014, funded by the Ford Foundation. The project will focus on small tea and coffee farmers in Kenya and Guatemala, eventually expanding to small farmers around the globe. “We’ve proven sustainable management techniques can make cash crops secure,” the internal development organization claims, as well as “boost yields on existing cropland and raise net income by [20-70 percent].” By teaching sustainable practices and financial literacy, groups like Devex empower women, grow farming communities and feed more hungry mouths every day around the globe.
Sources: Devex, Devex, Rainforest Alliance, WFP
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