Women's
economic empowerment

Our Women's Economic Empowerment Program amplifies the business case for women’s economic empowerment and incentivizes public and private investment into gender-inclusive and transformative actions, practices, and policies.

Up to 1 in 3 individuals engaged in agriculture in Southeast Asia are women, yet they face more barriers to accessing finance, extension services, land ownership, information, and inputs relative to men.

Research shows that empowering women in agriculture as decision-makers — as customers, farmers and business owners — drives equitable economic growth, injects more cash into rural economies and increases investments in solutions and services that help communities thrive.

This program is funded by the GrowHer multi-donor impact fund to amplify the business case for women's economic empowerment, incentivize public and private investment into actions, practices, and policies that accelerate diversity and inclusion. Learn more here.

UNDERSTANDING GENDER INCLUSION

Snapshot of Southeast Asia's progress on women's economic empowerment

Women are often invisible in the smallholder farming landscape in Southeast Asia, perceived as being “unproductive” compared to men while also being expected to provide unpaid farm labour and bear the burden of care and reproductive work. As a multi-stakeholder platform, Grow Asia’s approach to supporting women’s economic empowerment targets promoting deeper understanding of the value of engaging women in agriculture value chains and gender mainstreaming among our partners.

Explore Reports

Research & Reports

Grow Asia iscollaborating with global partners to better understand the importance of becoming more gender-inclusive, responsive, and transformative.

Grow Asia generates case studies demonstrating the business benefits of becoming more gender-inclusive, responsive, and transformative. This includes attracting and retaining top talent, increasing returns on inclusive spending and supplier recruitment, sustaining value chains, improving environmental and social outcomes, and generating positive reputational value.

Explore Case Studies

Case studies

ADOPTING BEST PRACTICE

Toolkits

Grow Asia is building a repository of “usage tools” for engaging women farmers. These resources are used by our partners to scale, replicate or refine good practice occurring elsewhere.

Grow Asia is creating a Community of Practice to engage with diverse stakeholders across value chains and geographies. The community offers a space for our partners to share best practices, identify solutions to challenges, resources, and find partnerships.

Join our community of practice

Join the community

EMPOWERING WOMEN IN AGRICULTURE

Our ongoing programs, designed and implemented together with our Country Partnerships, include GrowHer, THRIVE and AGREE.

The GrowHer Community

Visit GrowHer.org

Launched in 2019 by Grow Asia - alongside AGREA, Corteva Agriscience, and WOMAG - GrowHer is a community-based platform that connects women to learning events, essential resources, and best-practice sharing from other women agripreneurs, with the aim of supporting women's economic empowerment in the agriculture sector.

The AGREE Project

AGREE (short for ASEAN Green Recovery through Equity and Empowerment) is an initiative supported by the Canadian government (IDRC) in Cambodia, the Philippines, and Viet Nam. The project aims to show how COVID-19 recovery can be gender- and climate-responsive, by testing pilot interventions with corporate partners and informing policy-making that champions women as agents of climate action.

Learn More

GrowHer: Kakao

GrowHer Kakao is an inclusive initiative aimed at enhancing gender equality in the cacao value chain in Sulawesi, Indonesia. This project is backed by GIZ and involves four consortium members: Grow Asia, Mars, Save the Children Indonesian, and PISAgro. The aim of GrowHer Kakao is to tackle systemic social and environmental challenges by providing context-specific and culturally-sensitive training and resources. The project incorporates local governance and decision-making processes to challenge gender-based power dynamics.

Learn More

STRENGTHENING POLICY ENVIRONMENTS

Grow Asia synthesizes learnings from across our programs and Country Partnership Working Groups to inform policy and engage governments in moving from dialogue to action. Our network's learnings and insights help policymakers better design and implement gender-inclusive policies, incentives, and access to finance for women.