Gender-Smart Investing Roadmap for Food Systems Transformation

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The Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) project and the Climate Taskforce of the GIZ Sector Network for Rural Development (SNRD) in Africa invite you to a two-hour webinar to share the findings from the Strategic Roadmap on Mainstreaming Gender-Smart Investing to Scale Climate-Smart Agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. 

Register

Follow this link to register at Eventbrite

Language: English and French

Speakers from AICCRA include:

  • Stephanie Jaquet (moderator)

  • Ena Derenoncourt

  • Godefroy Grosjean

  • Hauke Dahl

  • Ana Maria Loboguerrero will make concluding remarks

Presentations from CGIAR, GIZ, public and private investors, ecosystem enablers, and agri-SMEs of different scales operating in Tanzania, Kenya, Zambia and Senegal will highlight recent developments at the nexus of Gender and Climate finance and propose solutions to mainstream gender-smart investing for innovative and inclusive food systems transformation.

The presentations will be followed by two-concurrent breakout rooms, on the realities for the supply of capital with a gender lens to agricultural value chain actors, the second will discuss the challenges and opportunities to raise capital by climate innovators respectively. This dissemination workshop is open to all GIZ colleagues, CGIAR staff, AICCRA, and implementation partners.

Background: Gender-Smart Investing Roadmap

The Strategic roadmap on mainstreaming gender-smart investing to scale climate-smart agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa aims to highlight solutions for different ecosystem actors, including public and private investors, banks, corporations, NGOs, and governments, on how to scale climate-smart agriculture for resilient agri-food systems and gender equality.

While women contribute more than 50% of the global production and represent 40 to 80% of the agricultural labor, their productivity level is 20 to 30% lower than men. Women’s ability to innovate, implement and lead climate solutions are limited due to inequitable access to inputs, information and most importantly finance.

Hence, the need to mainstream gender dimensions when making climatesmart investments is critical to addressing funding gaps of women in the agricultural sector, both women smallholder farmers and women-owned agricultural SMEs.

Leveraging climate finance to support women can help unlock significant opportunities to strengthen climate innovation and deliver stronger, and more equitable climate and environmental outcomes.

Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) initiatives have the potential to tackle environmental, social, and economic challenges posed by climate change.

However, if women are not fully engaged, they cannot be a part of the solution and they remain greatly vulnerable to climate shocks. CSA innovations must consider the constraints, perspectives, and needs of women farmers and agri-entrepreneurs.

Context relevance and participatory prioritization based on short-term and long-term benefits to both men and women leads to higher adoption of climate-smart agriculture practices by all actors.

Up until 2020, nearly USD 632 billion has been deployed through climate finance vehicles at the global level. Unfortunately, less than 3% of these funds were directed toward agriculture, while only 2% of worldwide venture capital investments are directed towards women-run businesses.

Two major gaps need to be tackled.

First, globally, small-scale farmers, among which the majority are women, need approximately USD 240 billion to adapt to climate change and build their resilience for the long haul.

Second, women-owned agri-SMEs in Africa require approximately USD 15.6 billion if they are to grow their business and scale climate smart business models. Innovative gender-smart investing can unlock economic value through empowering women. Mainstreaming gender-smart investments in climate-smart agriculture (CSA) presents great opportunities to mitigate risks, amplify impacts, and reduce gender inequality.

Successful mainstreaming of gender-smart CSA investments require four interdependent actions:

  • Capacity building: on gender and CSA dimensions of all actors in the food ecosystem, including farmers, SMEs, corporations, financiers and public bodies.
  • Gender-responsive products and programs: that address gaps across the value chain actors and activities.
  • Partnerships and engagement: to leverage resources and knowledge for faster collective action.
  • Sex-disaggregated data collection and analysis: essential to identify new gender-smart CSA business models and investment strategies.

Draft agenda

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