• Contact Us
  • Receive SEEP Updates
 
         
  • SEEP Member Space
  • Become a Member
  • About
    • Our Story
    • Our Core Values
    • Our Team
    • Partner with SEEP
    • Board of Directors
    • COVID-19 Response
  • Membership
    • Meet Our Members
    • Benefits
    • How to Apply
    • SEEP & AMEA Partnership
    • SEEP Member Marketplace
    • SEEP Member Space
    • GenerationNOW
  • Thematic Areas
    • Agriculture & Food Security
      • Agriculture & Food Security Resource Library
    • Resilient Markets
      • Minimum Economic Recovery Standards
      • Markets in Crises Community of Practice
      • Livelihoods and Inclusive Finance Expansion
      • Disaster Risk Reduction
      • Resilient Markets Resource Library
    • Responsible Finance
      • Responsible Finance through Local Leadership and Learning
      • Association Services
      • Online Courses and Certification in Digital Finance
      • Responsible Finance Resource Library
    • Savings Groups
      • Women Saving for Resilience
      • Mastercard Foundation Savings Learning Lab
      • Savings-Led Working Group
      • Savings Groups Evidence and Learning Initiative
      • Red GALAC
      • The Mango Tree
      • SG2020: The Future of Savings Groups
    • Women's Economic Empowerment
      • WEE Global Learning Forum
      • WEE Working Group
      • WEE Peer Learning Group
      • AWEF Learning Series
      • WEE Resource Library
  • SEEP Resources
  • Blogs and Webinars
    • Blogs
    • Webinars on Demand
  • Events
  • Conferences
    • 2020 SEEP Annual Conference
    • SG2020: The Future of Savings Groups
    • 2017 Women’s Economic Empowerment Global Learning Forum
  • Contact Us
  • Receive SEEP Updates
  • SEEP Member Space
  • Become a Member
       

 Back

Progress through Partnerships: The Case of WEinSPIRE in Engaging Market Actors for Women's Empowerment

Sep 27, 2018 | by Muhammad Junaid and Frenki Kozeli, Chemonics

The development community has long been in pursuit of partnerships with public and private sector actors to improve market systems. At its best, these partnerships result in more inclusive and more sustainable market systems interventions. In Pakistan, the USAID Punjab Enabling Environment Project (PEEP) leveraged the power of partnerships to create a platform for women’s economic empowerment in the livestock sector.

Partners in Inclusion

Nearly a quarter of Pakistan’s gross domestic product is linked to the agriculture sector, and 55 percent of this sector is livestock. Despite its importance, the productivity per animal in terms of milk and meat yield is among the lowest in the region. Small farmers and specifically rural women make up the vast majority of producers in the livestock sector, mainly concentrated in the southern districts of Punjab. It naturally followed that the key for boosting the productivity of the livestock sector was in the technical and economic empowerment of women in these value chains.

Improving the livestock sector was never going to be a one-activity solution. USAID PEEP did not seek to directly provide the many services the farmers in the livestock sector required since the sustainability of the interventions would be dubious, to say the least. Instead, the project stepped back to analyze the incentives of the market system actors that touched the livestock sector—many of them already project partners—and addressed their pain points in providing more inclusive services. USAID PEEP’s role was to convene and align the incentives of all its partner market systems actors for achieving women’s economic empowerment. Most critically, these actors entered a formal joint-partnership with one another, not just the project. These partners, now engaged with one another through an initiative dubbed WEinSPIRE, provided well-rounded services to women livestock farmers in southern Punjab, including:

  • Access to Husbandry Services: USAID PEEP partnered with the Livestock and Dairy Development Department and the Women’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry as part of the WEinSPIRE initiative to ensure outreach, local ownership and sustainability. The Department and Chamber’s targets for increased service provision and outreach aligned with USAID PEEP’s objective of supporting a more inclusive market system. With USAID PEEP support, the Department and the Chamber developed an innovative mobile training program for improving the productivity of women livestock farmers in southern Punjab—bringing training to women’s doorsteps through converted school buses. WEinSPIRE also linked women with local extension workers for reliable access to vaccination and treatment for animals.
  • Access to Finance: Smallholder farmers need access to finance to purchase animals, inputs and services for their livestock business but lack knowledge and collateral to access finance from the market. Microfinance institutions have the incentive to increase their client base with trusted borrowers. To build that trust, PEEP adopted a three-pronged strategy: through the WEinSPIRE platform, it helped women farmers join the Livestock Breeders Associations so they can maintain certified records of their animals; it organized financial and business management trainings for farmers in collaboration with the Women’s Chamber of Commerce; and it helped the local microfinance institutions that joined the WEinSPIRE platform to develop specialized loan products for women livestock farmers.
  • Access to Information: In addition to finance, smallholder farmers need access to information on husbandry best practices, prices and location of markets. The WEinSPIRE platform includes telecommunications companies looking for expanded clientele to fulfill the farmers’ need for access to information and facilitate their entry into the market system.
  • Access to Markets: The Livestock Breeders Associations that have joined the WEinSPIRE initiative help farmers access improved animal breeds. PEEP, again, capitalized on the breeders’ incentives to increase livestock sales to bring them into the initiative and to provide farmers access to quality animals for purchase, rearing and subsequent sale.

Learning at #SEEP2018

As the market system matures, the different actors have started interacting independently developing new linkages and initiatives. During the Progress through Partnerships: Engaging Market Actors for Women’s Empowerment session at #SEEP2018, we’ll be taking a deep dive into the WEinSPIRE partnership platform, talking through the actors, their incentives, and how the partnership model has been scaled. We’ll also be discussing a different partnership model for women’s empowerment, led by MEDA, and reflecting on how these initiatives fit into a broader development strategy for women’s empowerment.


This post was authored by Muhammad Junaid, chief of party of the USAID Punjab Enabling Environment Project (PEEP), and Frenki Kozeli, a manager on Chemonics’ Economic Growth and Trade Practice.

Categories: Food Security Women and Girls English Blog Womens Economic Empowerment Blog Agriculture & Food Security Blog WebinarsBlogs

Search Now
Filter By Category
topics
  • All
  • Consumer Protection
  • Disaster Risk Reduction
  • Economic Strengthening and Recovery
  • Financial Inclusion
  • Food Security
  • Fragile and Conflict-affected Environments
  • Health
  • Livelihoods
  • Market Systems
  • Microfinance
  • Monitoring and Evaluation
  • Rural and Agricultural Finance
  • Savings Groups
  • Technology
  • Women and Girls
  • Youth and Children
Thematic Areas
  • All
  • Agriculture & Food Security
  • Resilient Markets
  • Responsible Finance
  • Women's Economic Empowerment

Language

  • All
  • Arabic
  • English
  • French
  • Portuguese
  • Spanish

Geographical Region

  • All
  • East Asia and Pacific
  • Eastern Europe and Central Asia
  • Global
  • Latin America and The Caribbean
  • South America
  • South Asia
  • Sub-Saharan Africa
  • Western Europe

Year Published

  • 2021
  • 2020
  • 2019
  • 2018
  • 2017
  • 2016
  • 2015
  • 2014
  • 2013
  • 2012
  • 2011
  • 2010
  • 2009
  • 2008
  • 2007
  • 2006
  • 2005
  • 2004
  • 2003

logo.png

1621 North Kent Street, Ste 900,
Arlington, VA, 22209

P 202.534.1400
F 703.276.1433

Website Photos: © mari matsuri

QUICK LINKS
  • Home
  • About SEEP
  • Membership
  • Our Thematic Areas
  • SEEP Resources
  • Join our Team
  • COVID-19 Response
  • SEEP Blog
  • Webinars on Demand
  • Events
  • Jobs in the Network
  • Privacy Policy
CONNECT WITH US

             

Get News

 
Website by Morweb.org
© 2023 SEEP. All rights reserved.