East Africa

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

After struggling to make ends meet on her tomato farm, Cicily partnered with TechnoServe to start growing the more resilient Kilele tomato and implement best farming practices, allowing her to increase profits and open her own store.

A woman who needed healthy food for her young son used her ingenuity to place herself on the path of success by starting her own business. Today, she is an entrepreneur with big plans for the future.

Ruth Nabatanzi couldn’t afford to stay in school, and struggled to make ends meet. After a TechnoServe training, she launched a career as a welder, an unusual occupation for women in her country. Now she is earning significantly more income – and breaking gender stereotypes.

In the final installment of this three-part series, Crop to Cup, learn how coffee processing – cupping, in particular – in East Africa affects the taste of your coffee and the prices that farmers receive.

From Ethiopia to Peru, a highly efficient, natural technology is being implemented to help wetlands recover: vetiver grass. Learn how it works in Peru – and how it helps coffee farmer Emilia Lozada send her children to school.

In part two of this new three-part series, Crop to Cup, learn how coffee processors in East Africa play a role in the coffee that ends up in consumers’ cups around the world, no matter how you take your coffee. Look out for part three, which covers quality control.

In part one of this new three-part series, Crop to Cup, learn how farmers in East Africa play a role in the coffee that ends up in consumers’ cups around the world, no matter how you take your coffee. Look out for parts two and three, which cover processing and quality control.

After growing up watching his family grow coffee on their land in the Sidama region of Ethiopia, Amanuel Belay followed suit. But years of repetitive farming practices dulled his success. An environmentally sustainable TechnoServe program changed all that – and encouraged Amanuel to start helping other farmers.

Food insecurity disproportionately affects women and other vulnerable populations – and the situation is worsening with COVID-19. See how two determined women in low-income countries found creative ways to improve their incomes and their families’ access to nutritious food.