Investing in Women to Strengthen Supply Chains

A global partnership to make the business case for women’s economic empowerment

Women play critical but often unseen and unpaid roles in agricultural production. They represent 43% of the global agriculture workforce yet receive unequal access to training, technology, finance, and land. This is a significant missed opportunity: closing this equity gap could make women-run farms more productive and successful—thereby increasing household earnings, sparking economic growth, and augmenting the global food supply.

PepsiCo sources raw materials from farmers worldwide. Its global agricultural supply chains offer an excellent test case for the power and potential of investing in women. In June 2020, PepsiCo and USAID launched the Investing in Women to Strengthen Supply Chains partnership to prove the business case for women’s economic empowerment and show how elevating women in supply chains can lead to greater growth, profitability, and sustainability.

PARTNERSHIP APPROACH

USAID and PepsiCo will work together to strengthen women’s agricultural skills and access to resources within PepsiCo’s supply chains to demonstrate the value of women’s contributions to core business and impact goals. Together, the partners will provide evidence-based models, new on-farm approaches, and data and insights to make a practical and compelling business case for scaling investments in women’s economic empowerment within PepsiCo and other global companies. The partners will work together across four programmatic pillars:

Pillar 1: Capitalize on PepsiCo’s Demonstration Farms to Showcase Innovative Ways to Empower and Support Women in Agricultural Supply Chains: The partners will design, implement, and showcase new solutions and strategies for empowering women in agriculture. They will pilot and evaluate these interventions through PepsiCo demonstration farms—sites where PepsiCo agronomists train farmers on good agricultural practices and technology to improve production—in Colombia, India, Pakistan, and Vietnam. Through this work, the partners will seek to provide clear models of on-farm and supply chain interventions that consider women’s needs, priorities, skills, and unique knowledge.

Pillar 2: Invest in Women’s Empowerment Solutions in Agriculture: The partners will provide grants to bolster the work women-led farmer groups, women-led businesses, and other supply chain actors are pursuing to strengthen women’s economic opportunities, enhance competitiveness, reduce gender disparities, and improve women’s access to and control over land.

Pillar 3: Influence the Industry: The partners will use evidence and lessons learned from the activity to make the case for scaling investments in women to PepsiCo peer companies sourcing from or working in rural communities.

Pillar 4: Scale Women’s Economic Empowerment within PepsiCo Business Units: The partners will leverage the evidence-based business case for women’s economic empowerment to inform and reinforce PepsiCo’s commitment and investments. PepsiCo will apply lessons learned from the partnership to focus its investments on the highest impact approaches for empowering women.

This Global Development Alliance is a five-year partnership (June 2020-June 2025) managed by the USAID Bureau for Development, Democracy and Innovation Gender Equality & Women’s Empowerment Hub (DDI/GenDev) in close coordination with PepsiCo’s Global Sustainable Agriculture Team. Resonance and the International Center for Research on Women will lead implementation of partnership activities.

ABOUT USAID

The U.S. Agency for International Development administers U.S. foreign assistance programs providing economic and humanitarian assistance in more than 100 countries worldwide. This activity is funded through a women’s economic empowerment fund at USAID.

ABOUT PEPSICO

PepsiCo products are enjoyed by consumers more than one billion times a day in more than 200 countries and territories around the world. PepsiCo generated more than $67 billion in net revenue in 2019, driven by a complementary food and beverage portfolio that includes Frito-Lay, Gatorade, Pepsi-Cola, Quaker, and Tropicana. PepsiCo’s product portfolio includes a wide range of enjoyable foods and beverages, including 23 brands that generate more than $1 billion each in estimated annual retail sales. PepsiCo is guided by our vision to Be the Global Leader in Convenient Foods and Beverages by Winning with Purpose. “Winning with Purpose” reflects our ambition to win sustainably in the marketplace and embed purpose into all aspects of the business. For more information, visit www.pepsico.com.

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