Central America

This Women's History Month, we highlight our work promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment throughout the coffee value chain.

Women comprise 70% of the world's low-income people, making them especially vulnerable to climate change. But with the right support, they can be a tremendous force for protecting their livelihoods, their families, and the environment. This week, we bring you some of those stories.

A coffee farmer in Nicaragua raises her two daughters alone after her partner left. She’s doing it while enrolled in a TechnoServe training program – and it’s paying off. Farmer trainers from TechnoServe stopped by to see how she was doing.

Can an innovative approach to teaching school students also transform how we train entrepreneurs and smallholder farmers around the world?

The last coffee farmer in his family, Axel Gutiérrez took TechnoServe training to heart as he tried to keep his farm operational. Now, after much hard work, he expects to double his profits this year.

TechnoServe’s Angelica Cubas Pérez visits a farmer in Nicaragua. This is the story that unfolded over lunch.

A cacao farmer in Nicaragua reaches the global stage as his chocolate rolls off a conveyor belt in Denmark. But not everything goes as planned. It isn’t long before climate change tests his resilience.

In Central America, the number of young people entering the job market outpaces the availability of jobs. But many young people lack the skills they need to find or create economic opportunities, leading them to seek a better future elsewhere. How can thriving small and growing businesses reverse this trend?

In Guatemala, shifting weather patterns and increased natural disasters are creating additional challenges for smallholder produce farmers like Manuel Guarcas Batzibal. TechnoServe is working with these farmers to boost their climate resilience while also addressing challenges related to high production costs, price volatility, and informal market connections.

In an important ecological buffer zone of northeastern Honduras, farmers are learning how to improve their coffee productivity while preserving the natural landscape. A TechnoServe program helped farmers raise productivity by 200% while still ensuring the environmental sustainability of the largest protected land in the country.