Why Gender Equality in Africa, Asia, and Central America Helps End Poverty.

Powering entrepreneurs is at the center of iDE’s new strategy. Based on evidence, input from experts, and more than 40 years of implementation experience, iDE believes that women’s entrepreneurship, in partnership with men, is a key driver of household prosperity in low- and middle-income communities. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, addressing the social and financial barriers that women face, for example, promoting equal decision-making power with partners over income and resources, substantially increases the effectiveness of efforts to improve household incomes, dietary diversity, food security and resilience. Findings show that household incomes can rise by more than 5 percentage points, and families and communities can experience a 20-point boost in overall resilience.

Helping women escape poverty is a fundamental strategy for breaking the cycle of global poverty and driving economic growth, because women represent the majority of the world’s poor. iDE’s legacy of building markets that serve last-mile and peri-urban communities has demonstrated that incubating and enabling women-led businesses can significantly accelerate human progress and deliver economic benefits in underserved communities.

Having studied catering, iDE entrepreneur Alemtsehay Abebe turned to brewing beer after she had difficulty finding work. But selling “tella” — a traditional brew made from barley — didn’t turn out the way she hoped. “I feared alcohol, that people might drink and fight,” said Alemtsehay.

So she became involved in an iDE nutrition project designed to fight malnutrition among children and provide women with livelihood opportunities. With donor support, entrepreneurial women were trained to become “nutrition sales agents,” who worked to prepare, promote and sell a traditional food called “mitin.” A simple porridge, mitin is a highly nutritious mixture of cereals and beans that are locally sourced. To become an agent, the women had to have space to dry the ingredients, own a shop, be trusted in the community and believe in nutrition work. Alemtsehay said villagers asked her to “‘give us this [mitin] for free, and let’s try it.’ I said, ‘No, I don’t give. I spent money on it — but this is a very fair price.’ Now people see the benefit, and the whole village comes frequently to buy [from me].”