mAgri Focus Areas – Gender

Female users of mobile services are often neglected during the design stage of new types of services such as Agri VAS. As a result the service can further widen a pre-existing gender gap as the end product appears accessible and usable to only half of the potential user base. Marketing and distribution to women customers involves using female imagery and voices and working with womens’ groups to address the barriers to access and uptake of the service by women users.

This section aims to map out the challenges of reaching women farmers when developing Agri VAS and offers tools and best practice for understanding women farmers’ needs, and designing and marketing to women users.

1. Gender component in Agri VAS

2. Related blog posts

• mAgri

  Recognising Rural Women: guidelines on using mobile to improve women farmers’ access to information

  October 15, 2012 | Victoria Clause
  On the International Day of Rural Women we are pleased to share a focus note on Designing & Marketing Mobile Information & Advisory Services for Women Smallholders. Under the mFarmer Initiative, one of our key areas is working with mobile service pr...
• mAgri

  How (not why) to design and market mobile information and advisory services for women smallholder farmers

  July 19, 2012 | Victoria Clause
  There is no question around why it’s important to reach women farmers with agricultural services, as the facts are often quoted: Half of all farmers in the developing world are women and in some countries such as Rwanda, women account for as much as 70% ...