Global Development Alliance: Investing in Women to Strengthen Supply Chains

Challenge

Women play critical but often unseen and unpaid roles in agricultural production. Although represent 43% of the global agriculture workforce, women face unequal access to training, technology, finance, and land. This is a significant missed opportunity: closing this equity gap could make women-run farms more productive and successful—thereby increasing household earnings, sparking economic growth, and augmenting the global food supply. 

There’s a strong business case, too: For global agricultural buyers, investments in empowering women farmers can improve supply chain performance through increased yields, improved crop quality, increased resilience, and farmer loyalty.  

PepsiCo sources raw materials from farmers worldwide. Its global agricultural supply chains offer an excellent test case for the power and potential of investing in women.

Solution

In June 2020, PepsiCo and USAID launched the Investing in Women to Strengthen Supply Chains Global Development Alliance (GDA) to prove the business case for women’s economic empowerment. Together, they seek to show how elevating women in supply chains can lead to greater growth, profitability, and sustainability. 

Implemented by Resonance Global, the GDA will strengthen women’s agricultural skills and access to resources within PepsiCo’s supply chains, demonstrating the value of women’s contributions to core business and impact goals. Together, the partners will develop evidence-based models, new on-farm approaches, and data and insight to make a practical and compelling business case for scaling investments in women’s economic empowerment within PepsiCo and other global companies.  The partners are working across four programmatic pillars: 

• Pillar 1: Capitalize on PepsiCo’s Demonstration Farms to Showcase Innovative Ways to Empower and Support Women in Agricultural Supply Chains

  The partners are designing, implementing, and showcasing new solutions and strategies for empowering women in agriculture. They will pilot and evaluate these interventions through PepsiCo demonstration farms—sites where PepsiCo agronomists train farmers on good agricultural practices and technology to improve production—in Colombia, India, Pakistan, and Vietnam. Through this work, the partners will seek to provide clear models of on-farm and supply chain interventions that consider women’s needs, priorities, skills, and unique knowledge.  

• Pillar 2: Invest in Women’s Empowerment Solutions in Agriculture

  The partners will provide grants to bolster the work women-led farmer groups, women-led businesses, and other supply chain actors are pursuing to strengthen women’s economic opportunities, enhance competitiveness, reduce gender disparities, and improve women’s access to and control over land.

• Pillar 3: Influence the Industry

  The partners will use evidence and lessons learned from the activity to make the case for scaling investments in women to PepsiCo peer companies sourcing from or working in rural communities.

• Pillar 4: Scale Women’s Economic Empowerment within PepsiCo Business Units

  The partners will leverage the evidence-based business case for women’s economic empowerment to inform and reinforce PepsiCo’s commitment and investments. PepsiCo will apply lessons learned from the partnership to focus its investments on the highest impact approaches for empowering women.