Beans for Women for Empowerment

Beans for Women for Empowerment (Beans4Women) aims to strengthen the gender equality agency in decision-making and resource rights of women and girls active in the bean sector in three conflict-prone provinces in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC): North Kivu South Kivu and Tanganyika. This project aims to support food security in eastern DRC by strengthening bean sector value chains increasing the incomes of smallholder women and enabling them to make a living from their land and address all related issues. Project activities include:(1) promoting gender equity in bean value chains while addressing women's rights and access to productive resources including land. This is through upscaling and brokering new business opportunities for women-led bean enterprises and female entrepreneurs. It also includes empowering women and girl voices in bean-economy leadership and decision-making; (2) increasing agricultural productivity by disseminating bean research products to users and improving the competence of key business actors such as women producers and cooperatives. This includes strengthening the capacity and responsiveness of the public and private sectors to deliver gender-responsive programming and policies and doing outreach education and bean product development activities aimed at influencing nutrition behaviours and attitudes; and (3) reducing the vulnerability of the bean value chain to climate change by accelerating the uptake of climate-smart technologies by women bean producers.

The expected outcomes of this project include: (1) enhanced climate-smart income opportunities for women and girls in the bean market; (2) increased women and girls' leadership and decision-making in the bean market; and (3) increased equitable access and control over means of production and nutritious food for smallholder farmers especially women and girls. The project directly targets at least two million beneficiaries (60% of whom are women and girls) in the three eastern provinces of the DRC (North-Kivu South-Kivu and Tanganyika). It would include more than 300 women-led enterprises 25 000 women leaders and 15 000 bean-farmer couples.