Grow Asia and Corteva Agriscience™ partner to progress Women’s Economic Empowerment in Southeast Asia.
Women farmers in Southeast Asia face barriers around access to land, information, extension services, capital, and other inputs. They are more likely to have seasonal, part-time, lower-paid work than men. Women are most often responsible for managing household finances, health, and education yet are often excluded from cooperatives or community decision-making. However, empowering women smallholders, lead farmers, and agripreneurs and increasing their capacity has the added benefit of driving economic growth to surrounding communities.
Multi-stakeholder partnerships, and the public-private cooperation they facilitate, are an effective and efficient way to implement scalable practices and policies that address these challenges. Launched in March 2021, Grow Asia and Corteva Agriscience have created a joint initiative to progress economic empowerment of women farmers and agripreneurs in Southeast Asia. The joint initiative is called THRIVE (short for Train Her to Promote Resilient, Inclusive Value Chains and Economic Empowerment). This multifaceted program, developed in close consultation with Grow Asia and Corteva’s community partners is tailored to the specific challenges women face, many of which have been exacerbated by COVID-19.
Given these challenges and opportunities for impact, THRIVE has two goals: (1) to increase women farmers’ farm management, digital and business skills; and (2) directly support women farmers, farm-level influencers and agripreneurs through networking events and mentorship opportunities. Corteva will provide financial, knowledge and training resources to the partnership for Grow Asia to roll out trainings, business development and networking events. The partnership will also include a mentorship program that links subject matter experts among Corteva staff directly with women agripreneurs. Each activity will be designed and led by Corteva’s and Grow Asia’s in-country teams and partners to address the specific interests and needs of the women farmers in those communities.
THRIVE programs are currently being piloted in Indonesia and Vietnam. In Indonesia, Corteva's national team is working with Grow Asia and the Australia-Indonesia Partnership for Promoting Rural Incomes through Support for Markets in Agriculture (PRISMA) to pilot trainings in Java as part of an existing Corteva-led women's empowerment program (called Ibu Hebat or 'Great Mother'). In Vietnam, the program is being piloted in 8 territories by the Partnership for Sustainable Agriculture in Vietnam (PSAV), a Grow Asia Country Partnership, together with the national Corteva team.
All content, learnings and best practices the partnership generates will be shared across the region through Grow Asia’s network and hosted on the Grow Asia Exchange.
We welcome additional partners to join the THRIVE project, including food and agriculture value chain companies, government, donors, academe and NGOs. Specifically, we are seeking partners to contribute expertise in: financial inclusion and literacy, family health and safety, gender-sensitive training delivery, women-centered design, women’s leadership and entrepreneurism, and more.
For more information - including how you can get involved - please contact Grow Asia’s Sustainable Investment & Inclusion Lead, Erin Sweeney, at erin@growasia.org.