MEDA Publications

Soy beans are a ‘game changer’ for families in the Upper West region of Ghana. GROW is showing the potential of this crop to provide a window for economic and social empowerment of women, bridge the food supply gap and improve families’ nutrition and wellbeing. With soy beans, women are diversifying their household food supplies and improving nutrition, especially for their children. For GROW, soy is the right crop: Soy improves nutrition and raises incomes.

Over seven years of implementation, the GROW project has learned a great deal about women’s economic empowerment and food security in northern Ghana. The project team is happy to share our lessons learned in the GROW Learning Series, a set of documents we are releasing in 2018. Topics include women’s economic empowerment, nutrition and food security, financial inclusion, women and technology and conservation agriculture.

Within this Learning Series, the GROW team is producing three short briefs on the project’s financial services work, focusing on our crop insurance pilot, Village Savings and Loan groups and the targeted technical assistance provided to our financial services partners. This paper highlights GROW's journey with the Village Savings and Loan Association model.