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VALUE4HER Climate Adaptation Evidence and Finance Readiness Facility for Women-Led Agribusiness SMEs

Feven Erko
VALUE4HER Climate Adaptation Evidence and Finance Readiness Facility for Women-Led Agribusiness SMEs
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Women-led agribusinesses across Africa are playing an increasingly important role in strengthening food-system resilience and responding to the growing impacts of climate change. From climate-smart production and aggregation to processing, input distribution, logistics, advisory services, and market access, women entrepreneurs are developing practical solutions that help businesses and communities adapt to climate risks.

However, many of these efforts remain poorly documented. The adaptation practices being implemented by small and medium-sized agribusinesses are often not captured in formal climate adaptation evidence systems, investment materials, policy discussions, or climate finance reporting.

The VALUE4HER Climate Adaptation Evidence and Finance Readiness Facility for Women-Led Agribusiness SMEs seeks to address this gap by helping selected women-led agribusiness SMEs identify, organize, strengthen, package, and communicate the climate adaptation evidence they already generate through their businesses.

The initiative is anchored in VALUE4HER, AGRA’s flagship platform for women-led agribusinesses, and implemented through a partnership between AGRA and CGIAR, specifically the Alliance of Bioversity International-CIAT and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI).

The initiative combines VALUE4HER’s extensive network and SME engagement infrastructure with CGIAR’s technical expertise in climate adaptation tracking, impact measurement, risk intelligence, climate finance readiness, evidence synthesis, and gender-responsive adaptation.

What Is the VALUE4HER Climate Adaptation Evidence and Finance Readiness Facility?

The facility is designed as a practical support mechanism for women-led agribusiness SMEs that are already taking action to address climate risks but need support to demonstrate the value and impact of those actions.

Rather than primarily financing new research or requiring SMEs to undertake extensive primary data collection, the initiative focuses on helping businesses make better use of information and evidence that already exists within their operations.

This may include:

The facility will help participating SMEs transform such information into credible and useful evidence products that can support:

  1. Climate adaptation learning
  2. Business growth
  3. Investor engagement
  4. Climate finance readiness
  5. Policy engagement
  6. Adaptation reporting
  7. Evidence-based decision-making
  8. Visibility of women’s contributions to climate action

Implementing Partners

The initiative will be implemented through collaboration between AGRA and CGIAR, drawing on the complementary strengths of the participating organizations.

AGRA and VALUE4HER

VALUE4HER is AGRA’s flagship platform supporting women-led agribusinesses across Africa.

The platform provides access to and facilitates opportunities related to:

VALUE4HER reaches more than 17,000 women-led agribusinesses across 46 African countries, providing a significant platform through which promising SMEs can be identified, targeted, supported, and connected.

For this initiative, VALUE4HER will serve as an important:

AGRA will also contribute its climate adaptation technical capacity to help identify women-led SMEs that are already contributing to climate adaptation.

CGIAR

CGIAR will contribute technical expertise through the Adaptation Insights project, with relevant expertise from the Alliance of Bioversity International-CIAT and ILRI.

CGIAR’s contribution will include technical support related to:

The partnership therefore brings together a strong SME network with specialized climate adaptation and evidence capabilities.

Overall Goal of the Initiative

The overall goal is to leverage VALUE4HER as a platform for strengthening the capacity of women-led agribusiness SMEs to document, package, and communicate climate adaptation evidence in ways that improve climate finance readiness, enhance resilience, and increase the visibility of women’s contributions to climate action and adaptation reporting.

The initiative therefore connects three important areas:

Climate adaptation + credible evidence + finance readiness

The ultimate ambition is to make women’s climate adaptation contributions more visible, more credible, and more useful for investment, policy, learning, and future scaling.

Specific Objectives

The facility has five major objectives.

1. Identify women-led agribusiness SMEs with adaptation potential

Through VALUE4HER, the initiative will identify women-led agribusiness SMEs that have:

2. Strengthen evidence management capacity

Selected SMEs will receive support to organize, validate, package, and communicate the climate adaptation information they already have.

The focus is on making existing business evidence more structured, credible, understandable, and useful.

3. Improve climate finance and investment readiness

The initiative will help SMEs translate their adaptation experience and evidence into business-relevant narratives and materials.

This can help businesses better communicate with:

4. Generate a synthesized evidence base

The initiative will synthesize information from participating businesses to develop a broader understanding of:

5. Support gender-responsive adaptation reporting and policy engagement

By making women’s adaptation activities more visible, the initiative can contribute to broader climate adaptation measurement, policy discussions, learning, and reporting.

Core Eligibility Characteristics

Target businesses should generally meet the following criteria:

1. Women-led or women-majority-owned

The business should be led by women or majority-owned by women.

2. Established business model

Applicants should have a functioning and established business model rather than an idea-stage enterprise.

3. Formal or registered operation

The initiative will prioritize registered or formally operating businesses.

4. Climate adaptation relevance

The SME should demonstrate either:

5. Existing operational evidence

Applicants should have some existing information that can potentially be organized into useful evidence.

This may include:

6. Interest in climate finance or investment

The SME should demonstrate an interest in using its adaptation evidence for purposes such as:

7. Agribusiness value-chain participation

The initiative welcomes representation across different functions of agricultural and food-system value chains.

These may include:

What Kind of Support Will Selected SMEs Receive?

The proposed facility will combine several forms of support rather than relying on financial assistance alone.

1. Small Grants

Selected SMEs will receive small grants as part of the facility.

These grants are intended to complement technical assistance and evidence-development activities.

The broader objective is not simply to provide funding, but to help SMEs strengthen their ability to demonstrate and communicate the climate adaptation value of their businesses.

2. Technical Assistance

Participating SMEs will receive technical assistance focused on areas such as:

3. Climate Adaptation Masterclasses

CGIAR’s technical expertise will support learning opportunities and masterclasses that can strengthen participating businesses’ understanding of climate adaptation and evidence.

Potential areas include:

4. Evidence Packaging

A central feature of the facility is helping SMEs transform scattered business information into structured evidence.

Instead of leaving climate adaptation information inside operational records, participating businesses will be supported to develop clearer evidence products.

These could help communicate:

5. Climate Finance Readiness Support

Participating SMEs will also be supported to understand how adaptation evidence can strengthen their ability to engage with potential climate finance and investment opportunities.

The objective is to connect the technical climate evidence with commercially relevant business information.

This can help businesses better explain:

Climate risk → Adaptation action → Evidence → Business value → Investment opportunity

The Proposed Intervention Model

The facility follows a structured pathway designed to move from identification to evidence generation and ultimately toward finance, policy, and learning applications.

The proposed pathway is:

Identify → Select → Onboard → Support → Document → Validate → Package → Synthesize → Mobilize → Learn

Component 1: VALUE4HER-Based Targeting, Expression of Interest, and SME Selection

The initiative will begin by identifying potential women-led agribusiness SMEs through VALUE4HER and related AGRA partner pipelines.

An Expression of Interest (EOI) process will be used to identify businesses that demonstrate:

The selection process will aim to balance readiness and inclusion.

This means that businesses will not necessarily need to have sophisticated monitoring and evaluation systems already in place.

Promising women-led SMEs should not be excluded simply because their evidence systems are still developing.

Instead, the facility is designed to help businesses strengthen and organize the evidence they already possess.

How the Selection Process Is Expected to Work

The selection approach is intended to identify SMEs with both strong potential and a genuine need for support.

The process may consider the following dimensions:

Business readiness

Climate relevance

Evidence potential

Finance readiness

Inclusion and representation

Selection will also seek appropriate representation across different agribusiness value-chain functions and different business contexts.

Evidence Synthesis and Knowledge Generation

The initiative will not only benefit individual SMEs.

A broader objective is to generate a synthesized evidence base on women-led climate adaptation within African agribusiness.

The evidence generated through participating businesses can contribute to a better understanding of:

This synthesis can support future learning, reporting, policy engagement, investment discussions, and potential scaling.

Strategic Alignment

The facility aligns strongly with the mandate and priorities of both VALUE4HER/AGRA and CGIAR.

Alignment with VALUE4HER

The initiative builds on VALUE4HER’s existing focus on strengthening women-led agribusinesses through:

The proposed facility adds a climate adaptation evidence and finance-readiness dimension to that existing value proposition.

This can enable women-led businesses to demonstrate not only that they are commercially active, but also that they contribute to resilience and climate adaptation.

Alignment with AGRA

The initiative is aligned with AGRA priorities around:

It creates a practical link between women’s entrepreneurship and climate action.

Alignment with CGIAR

The initiative draws directly on CGIAR capabilities in:

The partnership therefore provides a bridge between technical climate research and the operational realities of women-led agribusiness SMEs.

Proposed Implementation Period

The proposed implementation period is:

August–December 2026

The initiative is expected to progress through several stages during this period.

August 2026

Initial activities are expected to focus on:

Following selection

The selected SMEs will move through:

Later stages

The initiative will then focus on:

Is There an Application Deadline?

The information provided for this opportunity specifies an implementation period of August–December 2026, but does not state a specific application or Expression of Interest deadline.

Applicants and interested women-led agribusiness SMEs should therefore verify the official EOI announcement or VALUE4HER/AGRA communication for the exact submission deadline before applying.

Geographic and Country Eligibility

The initiative focuses on Africa, drawing primarily on the VALUE4HER network, which spans 46 African countries.

The opportunity is therefore intended for eligible women-led agribusiness SMEs operating within Africa rather than applicants from countries outside the African continent.

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Sector Eligibility

Eligible businesses should be connected to agribusiness and agricultural or food-system value chains.

Relevant areas include:

  1. Agricultural production
  2. Processing
  3. Aggregation
  4. Input distribution
  5. Logistics
  6. Agricultural advisory services
  7. Market access
  8. Other relevant agribusiness activities

What Makes a Strong Candidate?

A particularly strong candidate would be a woman-led agribusiness that can demonstrate both commercial activity and climate relevance.

For example, a strong candidate could have:

Importantly, businesses do not necessarily need to have highly sophisticated climate monitoring systems.

The initiative specifically recognizes that evidence systems may still be emerging and seeks to strengthen businesses that have promising practices and useful information that can be organized and developed.

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Broader Significance for Women and Climate Action

Women are central to agricultural and food systems across Africa, yet their contributions to climate adaptation are not always adequately represented in formal evidence and financing systems.

Women-led SMEs can occupy critical positions between producers, markets, consumers, suppliers, financial institutions, and other actors.

Supporting these enterprises can therefore have implications beyond individual businesses.

Strengthening their evidence can help demonstrate how women entrepreneurs contribute to:

The initiative consequently addresses both a business evidence gap and a gender-responsive climate adaptation gap.

Key Takeaway

The VALUE4HER Climate Adaptation Evidence and Finance Readiness Facility is designed to help women-led agribusiness SMEs move from unrecognized climate adaptation activity to credible, finance-relevant evidence.

The initiative combines:

VALUE4HER’s continental SME network + AGRA’s climate expertise + CGIAR’s adaptation research and technical capabilities

to create a practical pathway through which women-led businesses can document what they are already doing, demonstrate the value of their adaptation activities, strengthen their finance readiness, and contribute to a broader understanding of women’s role in climate resilience.

Conclusion

The VALUE4HER Climate Adaptation Evidence and Finance Readiness Facility for Women-Led Agribusiness SMEs represents an opportunity to close an important gap between climate action, evidence, and finance.

Across Africa, women-led agribusinesses are already responding to climate risks through innovation, business adaptation, market diversification, improved production systems, processing, logistics, advisory services, input distribution, and other activities across food and agricultural value chains. Yet many of these contributions remain invisible because businesses may lack the systems, technical capacity, or resources required to transform operational information into credible climate adaptation evidence.

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