Climate Resilience through Empowering Women (CREW) Project
CREW is helping to boost rural livelihoods, preparing farmers to navigate climate risks, and supporting women's leadership in coffee in Ethiopia
2023-2028
Context
Ethiopia’s coffee sector is a vital source of export earnings, accounting for one-third of the country’s total exports. It employs approximately two million households, with 95% consisting of smallholder farmers who cultivate coffee on 1-2 hectares of land. Despite its significance, coffee-growing communities face several challenges, including vulnerability to climate change, low quality and quantity of coffee production, food insecurity, and gender inequality. Poor post-harvest processing methods at wet mills lead to waterway pollution, while ineffective branding results in lower export prices, disincentivizing investment in environmental protection.
Women play a crucial role in coffee production, both on farms and at the processing level. However, they are often excluded from leadership roles, influence, and decision-making throughout the value chain, and thus are disproportionately impacted by climate change. Together, these challenges threaten the livelihoods of 15 million Ethiopians who depend on the coffee sector and pose a substantial risk to the country’s macroeconomic stability.
The Opportunity
Given the increasing global demand for sustainable coffee production and Ethiopia’s unique, high-quality coffee, the country has an opportunity to meet this demand, boost export income, and improve livelihoods. Currently, climate change threatens coffee production in existing growing areas, where farmers are ill-equipped to adapt. By providing farmers and processors with the knowledge, skills, and practices needed to reduce their vulnerability to climate change, women will become leaders and agents of change, and coffee-growing communities will thrive and become more climate-resilient.
The Strategy
In 2023, TechnoServe partnered with Global Affairs Canada and Nespresso, launching the Climate Resilience through Empowering Women (CREW) project in Southern Ethiopia. The five-year project aims to strengthen the climate resilience of coffee-growing communities in the Sidama and Oromia regions while promoting the economic empowerment of marginalized women. To achieve this ultimate goal, TechnoServe is working throughout the coffee value chain, catalyzing change among farmers/households, wet mills, and the industry as a whole.
Outcome 1 (Farmers/households): Increased agency, climate resilience, food security, and production of women-managed coffee farms. CREW is delivering a customized version of TechnoServe’s Coffee Farm College (CFC) and a stumping incentive program to increase the knowledge, skills, and resources of women and men coffee farmers in order to reduce on-farm vulnerability to climate shocks and bolster their climate resilience while improving plant productivity. CREW also conducting leadership workshops for women in coffee-growing households to increase women’s voice and influence in coffee communities, with a particular focus on taking action to combat climate change and environmental degradation.
Outcome 2 (Wet mills): Improved and gender-equitable management of coffee wet mills that apply nature-based solutions to eliminate wastewater disposal. CREW is training wet mills on quality, governance, and social and environmental sustainability and supporting wet mills to adopt sustainable wastewater solutions that reduce water use and pollution. CREW is offering wet mill leadership and management workshops for women.
Outcome 3 (Industry): Increased supply of eco-certified climate resilient and gender equitable coffee production by coffee industry. CREW will investigate opportunities to 1) eco-brand Ethiopia’s coffee, and, 2) brand gender equitable coffee, and share new branding and promotion strategies with industry actors.
Results
By 2028, CREW is expected to benefit 79,210 women and men in coffee-growing communities, including training nearly 2,000 people in the Women’s Leadership in Coffee program.
