Press Room
Our online press kit contains information about our mission and history, senior staff bios, and official Root Capital logos for use by the media. For more information or to book an interview with one of our staff experts, please reach out to the press contact on the left.
About Root Capital
Leadership
Financial Information
Our Impact
Logo:
Maraba: Rebuilding Lives and Livelihoods After Genocide in Rwanda
After the Rwandan genocide devastated the country, smallholder coffee farmers banded together to help their community recover and prosper. When genocide broke out in Rwanda in early April 1994, coffee farmers around the small town of Maraba had just begun the harvest. Early pickings were underway, and the coffee cherries were in their final weeks of maturation. Three months later…
La Vivriére: Reclaiming Nutritious Home-Grown Grains in Senegal
Recognizing the need for affordable, nutrient-rich alternatives to imported rice, this agroprocessing business built up the market for traditional Senegalese grains. After years of watching working mothers feed their children imported rice rather than local Senegalese grains, Bineta Coulibaly decided to take action. Traditionally, women used locally-produced and nutrient-rich millet flour to make couscous, arraw (small balls of flour cooked…
Publications
Too often, data collection for impact evaluations, regardless of the intent, feels extractive to the research participants. The purpose of this working paper is to advance conversations and collaborations about how to create value for disadvantaged populations through the very act of evaluating the impact of programs and services on those populations.
Root Capital’s Women in Agriculture Initiative (WAI) seeks to promote greater economic opportunity for women by supporting small and growing businesses with access to credit and financial training and by promoting gender-inclusive practices. In 2014, we extended the reach of our financial products and services, increasing the number of gender-inclusive clients in Africa and Latin America.
An estimated 75 percent of Rwanda’s 12 million people live in rural areas, and a majority of them are subsistence farmers. These hardworking men and women cultivate small plots of land to meet their own food needs and, when possible, sell surpluses to earn income. For them and for their country, most opportunities for a better future originate in the soil.
