AGRA launches in Abidjan the VALUE4HER platform, intended to strengthen women-led agri-food enterprises. The initiative specifically aims to facilitate their access to financing, commercial opportunities, and technologies, with the ambition of mobilizing an initial cohort of at least 500 Ivorian enterprises.
Ivorian women entrepreneurs in the agri-food sector now have a new instrument at their disposal to develop their activities and access more economic opportunities. Indeed, AGRA, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, officially launched its VALUE4HER program this 14 of October in Abidjan, a continental platform designed to support Ivorian agri-entrepreneurs.
Through this initiative, the organization intends to remove several obstacles these enterprises face, notably difficulties in accessing financing, seeking commercial outlets, adopting adapted technologies, and the lack of professional networks. The program aims to connect more than 17 000 women-led agri-food enterprises on the continent.
For Côte d'Ivoire, where women operate at different levels of agricultural value chains, from production to processing and marketing, the challenge is to better convert their presence in the sector into economic growth opportunities. See also - Côte d'Ivoire: AGRA will launch VALUE4HER to connect agri-entrepreneurs to financing and more than 17 000 enterprises in Africa.
Nana Amoah, Director of Gender, Youth and Inclusion at AGRA, explained that the choice of Côte d'Ivoire is based notably on the importance of its agricultural economy and the determining role of women in food crop sectors. She issued a call to all women entrepreneurs to embrace the platform in order to benefit from support aimed at fostering their financial autonomy and contributing to the country's food self-sufficiency.
The launch of VALUE4HER in Côte d'Ivoire thus opens a new phase of mobilizing local entrepreneurs, with the ambition of fostering the emergence of enterprises capable of developing, processing more agricultural products, and conquering new markets. For his part, the representative of the Ivorian Minister Delegate in charge of Food Crops, Chief of Staff Lucien Diby N'Guessan, urged women entrepreneurs to embrace the platform.
He also called on financial institutions to propose products corresponding to their needs and for buyers to build sustainable commercial relationships with them. This mobilization is crucial to translate the program's objectives into economic results.
Registration on a platform is indeed a first step. Effective access to credit, the signing of commercial contracts, and the increase in production capacities will be important indicators for assessing the initiative's impact.
The representative of the Ivorian Ministry of Women, Family and Children, Félicité Koutouan, for her part, advocated for increased mobilization of economic actors, financial institutions, technical and financial partners, as well as professional organizations. The goal is to create a more favorable environment for the development of women-led enterprises and to support the emergence of new champions of agri-processing in Côte d'Ivoire.
Facilitating access to financing and markets. The VALUE4HER program is based on several complementary levers intended to improve the competitiveness of women-led enterprises.
It provides for support to structure activities, strengthen entrepreneurial capacities, and support their development. Access to markets constitutes another central axis.
The platform must facilitate the connection of entrepreneurs with buyers, processors, and distributors, in order to allow them to expand their outlets and forge more sustainable commercial relationships. Financing is also among the priorities.
By facilitating contacts with financial institutions and promoting the identification of products adapted to the needs of enterprises, VALUE4HER intends to contribute to reducing the financial constraints that can hinder their development. Access to technologies and the networking of entrepreneurs complete this framework.
The program also includes an advocacy component intended to make the voices of women heard more effectively in the agri-food ecosystem and in the decisions that influence the development of sectors. For AGRA, this involves proposing a framework allowing entrepreneurs to overcome difficulties related to the structuring of their activities and to access