Putting Technology into the Hands of Women Impact Study (EN/FR)

Women in northern Ghana have limited access to agricultural technology and are forced to do most of their farming activities manually, from clearing land to planting, harvesting and processing. In 2017, the GROW project launched a large-scale smart incentive program to increase women’s access to selected technologies through local commercial providers. MEDA worked to build a more sustainable market for the technologies by working on both the supply and demand side. Even with increased supply, the technologies are expensive for smallholder women farmers, many of whom would be unable to purchase even a single item of technology without financial support. For a limited period of time, the Technology Fund offered a smart incentive to women involved in the GROW project, allowing them to benefit from technology they could otherwise not afford. This paper focuses on a group of Women Sales Agents, market intermediaries who connect smallholder women farmers to markets, who have purchased several technologies. This paper examines the impact of purchasing technology on women’s time use, income, working capital and social position in their communities, and makes recommendations for future programming.