Call for EOIs: Accelerating Business to Empower Rural women in Agriculture Program (Cohort 2)

They are seeking providers who see inclusive finance as key to commercial viability and have practical ideas on how to use financial services to increase the climate resilience of smallholder women farmers.

Selected providers will be invited to join ABERA, Accelerating Business to Empower Rural women in Agriculture, which is a collaboration between CGAP and IDH.

Rural women are vital to rural economies, serving as laborers, agricultural producers, and consumers. They are also disproportionately exposed to climate change and central to global agricultural production and food security. Financial and agricultural service providers could do more to meet women’s varied needs and ambitions in a way that protects and enhances the providers’ commercial interests.

ABERA offers providers an opportunity to grow their business by jointly developing financial products and solutions that help rural women adapt and thrive in the face of climate change.

Aims

• ABERA is a cohort of financial and agricultural service providers that aims to improve the climate resilience of providers and the rural women they serve through innovations in inclusive finance in a way that makes business sense.

Objectives

• A new business case for serving rural women is emerging, combining data, digital financial services, and platform approaches with in-person support and expertise. ABERA’s objectives are to:
  • Articulate the business case for financial and agricultural service providers to extend innovative services that are gender-inclusive and lead to rural women’s climate-resilience.
  • Accelerate the adoption and scale-up of business models that improve the climate resilience of business and women.
  • Generate practical models and concrete guidance for practitioners looking to serve rural women better.

Why do companies join ABERA?

• Optimizing business performance through tailored technical assistance that supports them to design, test, and scale climate-resilient solutions for rural women
• Climate-proofed strategy and operations through data-driven decision making
• Curated networking and peer exchange through virtual and in person convenings
• Visibility through CGAP and IDH communications, including websites, publications and strategic partnership events
• Connections with potential investors, results-based financiers, donors and other key sector players

What does ABERA ask of its cohort companies? 

• Time and human resources to participate in and support company assessments, regular meetings, and the implementation of recommendations to improve the company’s business models
• Willingness to share and exchange company experiences with the cohort, contributing to the group’s understanding of challenges, opportunities, and best practices among firms serving rural women
• Information and data on company policies, procedures, products, human resources, and business performance with CGAP and IDH. No commercially sensitive or proprietary data will be shared publicly or with other cohort members without the explicit consent of the company
• Willingness to pilot select relevant recommendations from the ABERA business analysis
• Participation in the cohort for 2-3 years to ensure that longer-term outcomes are captured

Eligibility Criteria

• ABERA encourages innovative companies to apply that:
  • Are for-profit medium to large businesses in the financial and/or agricultural sector operating for at least 3 years
  • Serve and/or source from at least 5,000 smallholder farmers, including a significant number of rural women, and are motivated to reach more
  • Commit to building climate resilience and increasing gender inclusion for their business and its customers
  • Operate in Africa and/or Asia
  • Are data driven, preferably collecting and deploying gender- and age-disaggregated data on their suppliers, customers, and staff to inform decisions and track performance
  • Are comfortable sharing anonymized data with ABERA (protected by confidentiality agreements) to develop successful pilots, generate insights, and drive scale
  • Commit staff time and resources to ABERA to ensure the success of pilots / scalable initiatives.
  • Interest or capacity to invest in pilots with monetary contribution

For more information, visit CGAP.