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Sub-Saharan Africa

Impact: Savings Groups for Reproductive Health in Bénin

Women’s Savings Groups for Better Reproductive Health in Bénin has delivered family planning education to women in hundreds of savings groups in the country’s southern region. It builds upon a savings program that has enabled thousands of women to save for health-related issues. See how the project has empowered women to take care of their own and their families’ health. Watch for additional impacts on empowering rural women and men to make thoughtful and informed decisions regarding planning their families.

Delicate, yet resilient: Women’s savings groups weather a drought in Burkina Faso

August 08, 2018

Daffodils symbolize rebirth and new beginnings. For those of us that garden, they signify the entry into Spring, although snow may still cover the ground. When the green leaves start to peek through the frozen soil, you wait in anticipation for the yellow and white flowers to finally bloom, knowing that one morning, you’ll wake up with a beautiful flower to greet you. The flowers are completely resilient to the snow and freezing temperatures despite their delicate petals.

Sophie Kandiel

There’s just one school in Sophie Kandiel’s village in central Burkina Faso. One school with six classes in a village of 4,000 people. When it rains, it’s tough to get around her community because there are only dirt tracks. And she’s lost count of how many times she has fed her children wild leaves flavored with a pinch of salt because that was all she had.

None of this has deterred Sophie. The mother of nine is determined to make sure all of her children are educated. Access to financial services has been key to her success.

Jane Nyambura

Dream deferred, not denied. Even if it means waiting another generation.

At least that’s how Jane Nyambura sees it.

As a girl she wanted to be a lawyer, but her parents couldn’t afford to send her to high school, let alone university. Now, she pours everything into her three sons and the daughter she adopted. Her second son, Peter, is already in university, while the youngest, Nathan, is in high school. Isabel is in elementary school.

Digital and Satellite Technology Program Launches to Support Ghana’s Smallholder Cocoa Farmers

ACCRA, GHANA, July 10, 2018 – SAT4Farming, an initiative to reach thousands of small-scale cocoa producers with information and services to improve their productivity and sustainability, was announced today. It is designed to use digital technology and satellite imagery to create individual Farm Development Plans (FDPs) that guide farmers over a seven-year period.

Africa’s Growing Agri-Tech Calls for Rapid Policy Response

June 12, 2018 by Alfred Kojo Yeboah

Bennett comes from a long farming tradition and grew maize much the same way as his Ghanaian father. So he was skeptical when Opoku, a young agricultural extension agent, said he would help improve Bennett’s farm. Opuku carried just a mobile tablet loaded with practical farming advice and agribusiness information. No farm equipment. No seeds. No fertilizer.

Pro-WEAI Baseline Results from the initiative Building the Resilience of Vulnerable Communities in Burkina Faso (BRB)

This report documents a quantitative assessment completed as part of a pilot test of the pro-WEAI for the “Gender, Agriculture, and Assets Project – Phase 2” (GAAP2) project led by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). The Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) was launched by IFPRI, Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and USAID’s Feed the Future program in February 2012 and was the first comprehensive standardized measure to capture women’s empowerment and inclusion in the agricultural sector.

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