Starring women - towards more inclusive agricultural services across Africa

Using an MSD approach the Strengthening African Rural Smallholders (STARS) programme improves the lives of smallholder farmers in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Senegal.

This brief describes some of the challenges women face in STARS’ programme countries and presents five selected solutions that have made agricultural value chains and access to financial services more inclusive:

1. Access to agri-loans
2. Value chain development for a female-led value chain
3. Digitising group lending and saving
4. Leadership in producer organisations
5. Catalysing systemic shifts in micro finance institution (MFI) attitudes to female clients