Project profile — Greater Rural Opportunities for Women 2

• Ghana (100.00%)

• Basic Health: Basic nutrition (12240) (20.00%)
• Business And Other Services: Business Development Services (25030) (40.00%)
• Agriculture: Agricultural education/training (31181) (40.00%)

• Gender equality (principal objective)
• Urban issues (not targeted)
• Participatory development and good governance (not targeted)
• Climate change mitigation (not targeted)
• Climate Change Adaptation (significant objective)
• ICT as a tool for development (not targeted)
• Trade development (not targeted)
• Youth Issues (not targeted)
• Biodiversity (not targeted)
• Environmental sustainability (cross-cutting) (principal objective)
• Indigenous Issues (not targeted)
• Disability (not targeted)
• Children's issues (not targeted)
• Desertification (not targeted)
• Disaster Risk Reduction(DRR) (not targeted)
• Nutrition (significant objective)

This project aims to reach an estimated 40,000 women smallholder farmers and entrepreneurs in the poorest regions of northern Ghana, most at risk of COVID-19 pandemic-related rise in food insecurity. This project supports women working in three crop value-chains. Project activities include: (1) offering agricultural and financial capacity-building; (2) broadening women’s access to labour-saving, innovative technologies through existing commercial outlets; (3) engaging male gender advocates; (4) working with traditional leaders; and (5) working directly with individual households to raise awareness of the respective contributions of all members. This project helps to shift social norms around the distribution of domestic work and facilitate women’s continued success and empowerment in the future, by raising awareness within communities of the importance and overall benefits of women’s economic participation. This project also boosts women farmers’ resilience to climate change by promoting diversification of crops and ecologically sound agricultural, food sustainability and organic waste management practices.

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) improved business environment and access to production means, including finance, training, and land for women farmers, entrepreneurs, and agribusinesses in selected agricultural value chains; (2) increased the use of climate-smart and nutrition-focused agricultural practices among women farmers and entrepreneurs; and (3) increased gender-equitable participation of women and men in decision-making within their households, communities, and the private sector.

Results Achieved as of March 2024 include: (1) mobilized and registered 51,665 women smallholder farmers; (2) increased sales volumes of soybeans and groundnuts, from 0.42 Metric Tons (MT) at baseline to 0.61 MT; (3) increased duration of access to fertile lands by women smallholder farmers from an average of 2.5 years to 8 years; (4) increased access to inputs such as seed, inoculants, and fertilizers from 30.74 % to 58.36%; (5) increased women smallholder farmer’s access to finances, from 16.23 % to 43.64%; (6) trained 22,184 women smallholder farmers in farm business management; (7) trained 20,665 women smallholder farmers and entrepreneurs on processing and using nutrient-rich and indigenous foods; (8) increased women’s active participation in household decision-making, from 14.9% at baseline to 57.72%; (9) reduced women’s daily average hours of work from 12.03 hours to 11.63 hours and increased men’s average from 6.95 hours to 7.02 hours a day; and (10) trained 401 men to serve as gender equality champions for advocacy targeting fellow men, traditional leaders, and the community on gender equality and unpaid care issues.

• Proactive disclosure