Gender Matters

Gender Diversity and Inclusion

We focus on Inclusive Gender

The gender strategy of our project addresses the aspirations of young persons, both women and men, to find meaningful employment in agriculture and agribusiness. This is achieved through four stages; 

Stronger orientation toward agricultural careers in secondary schools.

Agribusiness incubation by school leavers within vocational centers and Agribusiness Hubs.

Connecting agribusiness plans to lenders.

Providing business support services to new Agripreneurs.

The project relies upon full participation of women and will implement at least 70% women in its selection of beneficiaries across all partners.  A similar proportion of trainers and enterprise managers shall be women who understand the needs of fellow women through peer interactions.

Why gender matters to us

In Nigeria 60-79% of the rural work force is women but men are five times more likely to own land! To allow equal access to the opportunities offered by YAW, youths will be selected at 70:30 ratio of young women to men. Women will be given leadership roles among youth clusters and cooperatives needed to access innovative finance. Value Chains that most interest women will be provided special attention including higher-value horticultural crop production, small animal enterprise, processing and marketing.

Our Gender Responsive Initiative

The project will aim to develop a robust fact-base of women’s participation across the agriculture value chain (Sada and Mohammed 2013). It will aim at creation of an enabling environment, especially relating to land tenure policies and laws relating to women’s rights, and financial inclusion efforts for women in agribusiness through appropriate dialogue at various levels of administration (FAO 2011). Many secondary schools in Northern Nigeria are segregated by gender and this will make achieving the minimum of 70% women easier by working with at least 70% girls-only schools.

Take Actions Now!

These days, many restrictive customs are easing, and it is extremely important to demonstrate that young women can successfully enter into business and the workplace in ways considered within acceptable behaviour. While it is difficult to anticipate exact mitigation to site-specific constraints of women, it is fair to state that setting positive examples of women as successfully operating as businesspersons and valued employees within otherwise restrictive cultural environments and thereby contributing substantially to household incomes may well be the greatest mitigation to gender restriction placed upon women in the future.

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We made it!

It Rekindled my strength
This platform has rekindled my strength and believe in myself. In the next five years, I would have owned my own farm, employ people and tell women they can be a better person.
Come as you are
The training will bridge this unemployment gap and I am hopeful that I will be able to secure a meaningful employment in the agricultural sector through this program.
Paints of the Future
This is the first time a program is giving a lot of consideration to women and I must say it is very commendable. My husband actually encouraged me to participate and I enjoyed it.
Investing in our Future
The training is a platform for us to sharpen our business skills, my wife, Zainab is interested in poultry production. The training has so far being an enlightening one and we intend to establish our own business through this platform.

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