Location
Senegal
Topic
Access to Finance, Women's Economic Empowerment
Beneficiary
UNACOIS Jappo
Status
Completed
Year
2022
Women contribute to 80% of the agriculture production workforce in Senegal. Yet, they still face many more challenges compared to men, including low access to credit, access to land, financial literacy, low associativeness.
The ICR Facility supports UNACOIS JAPPO in assessing the current status for women in the agricultural sector in Senegal, across main themes: legal and governance, management and training, production, transformation and commercialization, access to finance and technology. A proposal for an organizational model as well as an implementation action plan (potentially with a first pilot experience with a cooperative of around 500 women entrepreneurs) will be developed.
The Technical assistance aimed at supporting the creation of cooperatives in the retail sector, especially for women, in the agricultural value chain. The technical assistance focused on women’s cooperatives in the horticulture. It aimed at identifying constrains and solutions to empowering women activities in agricultural value chains in Senegal.
The intervention allowed local institutions to better understand the constrains of women in the value chain as well as better target the solutions to be proposed and implemented to foster their activities. For example, the intervention contributed to enhance credit access for women by engaging a local bank which now has better targeted financial products to offer to women in the value chain.
UNACOIS's achievements have been greatly enhanced by ICR's support. Notably, our partnership with Ecobank has led to improved credit access through an awareness campaign in traditional markets across Senegal, resulting in direct account openings for young entrepreneurs, women, and traders. Additionally, the successful implementation of the ADEPME instrument has enrolled 263 merchants, making them eligible for Ecobank financing. Our digitization efforts, in collaboration with a fintech and Ecobank, have already digitized 60% of processes, ensuring efficient credit management and customer solutions.
