Document Type: Fact Sheets

Women comprise a substantial portion of the agricultural labor force in India but face significant difficulties accessing and retaining land rights, even when they inherit land from family. Despite laws, policies, and legal protections meant to empower women and safeguard their rights across the country, harmful gender norms often prevent women from fully benefiting from the products of the land they farm.

USAID’s Integrated Land and Resource Governance (ILRG) program supports USAID Missions to respond to the underlying land and property rights challenges that hamper other development efforts—like food security, economic growth, gender equality, and conflict prevention. With funding from the US Government’s Women’s Global Development and Prosperity (W-GDP) Fund at USAID, ILRG implements a partnership with PepsiCo to promote women’s economic empowerment in the potato value chain in West Bengal, India by improving access to land, skills, and entrepreneurial opportunities. The partnership seeks to demonstrate how women’s empowerment leads to increased adoption of PepsiCo’s sustainable farming practices in West Bengal, resulting in improved potato yields and net profitability for rural farmers. Ultimately, the program seeks to demonstrate to farmers and the private sector that empowering women makes social and economic sense.

ILRG is working with PepsiCo staff, communities, and household-level actors to develop socially appropriate activities that address gender inequities and barriers in the potato supply chain:

ILRG Technical Assistance Model 

The partnership will provide technical assistance in support of the following theory of change:

Technical assistance will be scaled up over time in pursuit of the following objectives:

• Impact farm-level outcomes by providing gender-responsive training in potato agronomy and sustainable farming practices, providing awards to early adopters of new practices, piloting land access for women’s groups, launching an empowerment training to increase personal agency and leadership, exploring land policy reform, and engaging women and men champions in households and communities to address harmful gender norms and gender-based violence;
• Strengthen PepsiCo’s internal capacity by integrating gender, women’s empowerment, and gender-based risks trainings and integrating gender considerations into existing PepsiCo training and performance monitoring tools; and
• Promote scale and sustainability by complementing PepsiCo’s mainstreaming efforts and coordinating actions with partner organizations and government initiatives.

The partnership provides a powerful way for PepsiCo to work with and utilize the expertise of USAID to promote women’s economic empowerment in the potato value chain in West Bengal, with scope for replication and scaling across its agricultural operations in India and globally. As such, the partnership is using a collaborating, learning, and adapting approach to pilot, adjust, and finalize pathways to scale. Monitoring, evaluation, and learning will provide data that supports the business case for strengthening women rights and access to land, trainings, and resources in the potato value chain in India.

Ownership and control over productive assets are at the heart of women’s economic empowerment and self-reliance. Through a partnership between USAID’s Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Hub, the Land and Resource Governance Division, and the Zambia Mission, the Integrated Land and Resource Governance (ILRG) program is securing and strengthening women’s rights to land and natural resources in Zambia as a pathway to social and economic empowerment. ILRG is working with the government, traditional leaders, civil society organizations, the private sector, and local communities to promote gender equality in land policy and regulations and in customary land documentation; increase women’s participation in community-based land and natural resource management; leverage land rights for economic opportunities; and address legal, social, and cultural barriers to women’s use and control of land and natural resources. This will enable women to access sustainable livelihoods, invest in their families and communities, be more resilient to external shocks, and contribute to national prosperity, while also supporting Zambia on the journey to self-reliance.

Key Results (2018 – 2020)

• Over 22,000 women had their land rights documented, representing around 48% of all land rights documented by ILRG in Zambia.
• Over 1,000 women reached through a partnership with local company Madison Finance (MFinance) to use customary land documentation data to increase women’s access to financial services in rural areas.
• Women’s land rights promoted in the documentation of both state and customary land through partnerships with the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources and the House of Chiefs, which adopted national Gender Guidelines to strengthen traditional leaders’ governance capacity.
• Scalable gender norms dialogues approach piloted with 25 local level traditional leaders in 6 chiefdoms, increasing their ability to champion gender equality in land and resource governance.
• Women’s representation as leaders on community resources boards in 4 chiefdoms increased to 23 percent (from 5 percent after the previous election). The approach is being scaled by partners Zambia Community Resource Board Association and Frankfurt Zoological Society to increase women’s meaningful participation in local natural resource governance.
• Enhanced job opportunities for women in the natural resources sector, supporting the Department of National Parks and Wildlife to include a gender module in the training program for Community Wildlife Scouts and to increase women’s participation in this career pathway.
• New knowledge and evidence published, including gender assessments, outcomes and lessons learned briefs/reports, and advocacy tools like blog posts on women’s inheritance rights, gender equality in the wildlife sector, and gender-based violence in land documentation.

Owning land is a powerful pathway to improved economic opportunity and livelihoods, wellbeing, and self-reliance in developing countries. Although women play a critical role in food production, they are less likely than men to own, inherit, and control land and natural resources, which limits their economic empowerment and increases their vulnerability to gender-based violence. The Integrated Land and Resource Governance (ILRG) program supports USAID missions to implement activities that improve land rights, support inclusive land and resource governance, build resilient livelihoods, and promote women’s economic empowerment. Through a partnership between USAID’s Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Hub and the Land and Resource Governance Division, ILRG is working with governments, civil society organizations, local communities, and the private sector to strengthen women’s land tenure security, inheritance rights, and decision-making power over land and natural resources in Ghana, India, Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia. By removing barriers to women’s ownership and management of property and resources, ILRG is directly addressing critical domains of women’s economic empowerment, including women’s agency and leadership; economic opportunities; access to markets, networks, and finance; and harmful gender norms.

Key Achievements on women’s land rights (2019 – 2020)

• Over 26,000 women had their land rights documented, including 4,558 women in Mozambique and 22,254 in Zambia, representing 68% of all land rights documented by ILRG in Mozambique and 48% in Zambia.
• Over 3,000 women accessed resources and benefits related to secure land rights, such as credit, agricultural training, and livelihoods opportunities.
• 500 women received agronomy training in India for the first time and a land leasing pilot enabled women’s groups to enter the PepsiCo potato supply chain. This pilot in West Bengal is the foundation for USAID’s Global Development Alliance with PepsiCo, which is making the business case to scale women’s economic empowerment approaches throughout its agricultural supply chains around the world.
• Six private sector partnerships to support gender-responsive land investment and women’s economic empowerment: with PepsiCo in India, Ecom Agroindustrial in Ghana, MFinance in Zambia, and Green Resources AS, Novo Madal, and Portucel in Mozambique.
• Women’s land rights promoted in the documentation of both state and customary land in Zambia through partnerships with the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources and the House of Chiefs, which adopted national Gender Guidelines to strengthen traditional leaders’ governance capacity.
• Women’s representation as leaders on community resources boards in four chiefdoms in Zambia increased to 23 percent (from 5 percent after the previous election), improving women’s meaningful participation in local natural resource governance.

New knowledge and evidence published, such as gender assessments, outcomes and lessons learned briefs/reports, and advocacy tools like blog posts on women’s inheritance rights, gender equality in the wildlife sector, women’s land leasing, empowering women farmers, and gender-based violence in land documentation.

USAID and PepsiCo are partnering to make the business case for women’s empowerment in the PepsiCo potato supply chain in West Bengal, India. The partnership is improving women’s access to land, skills, and employment and entrepreneurial opportunities to increase adoption of sustainable farming practices (SFPs), performance of PepsiCo Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and women’s income and agency, showing that investing in women’s empowerment makes social and economic sense.

Under a partnership between USAID’s Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Hub and the Land and Resource Governance Division, this activity is implemented by the Integrated Land and Resource Governance (ILRG) program. This pilot is the foundation for USAID’s Global Development Alliance with PepsiCo, which is making the business case to scale women’s economic empowerment approaches throughout its agricultural supply chains around the world.

Key Year 1 Results (2019 – 2020)

• 500 women in 48 women’s groups trained in potato agronomy, out of which 47% were women in PepsiCo farming families.
• First time many women received agriculture training, increasing their self-confidence and recognition by their families and communities.
• Women Field Agronomists and Community Agronomists recruited and trained, offering field support to farming families with increasing community acknowledgement that women can be a respected and valuable source of agronomy knowledge.
• Innovative land leasing pilot enabled women’s groups to enter the PepsiCo supply chain.
• 32 local PepsiCo staff and 4 PepsiCo partner staff trained in gender and women’s roles in agriculture.
• Training modules on potato training, sustainable farming practices, gender-based violence, and gender norms change developed/adapted for PepsiCo use across its supply chain in India.

Unclear land tenure and property rights paired with insufficient or nonexistent basic services have hindered agricultural and economic development in Colombia’s rural areas for decades. The lack of formal land rights inhibits economic growth, fuels illicit economies and activities, creates violence and social tension, and sets the stage for land appropriation. Women, ethnic communities, and youth in rural areas are especially vulnerable to these risks.