The Women in Agriculture Initiative (WAI), now in its 11th year, expands access to finance to more women-led and gender-inclusive businesses across Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia.

The WAI was launched in 2012 to promote gender equity and inclusion for women in agriculture. The initiative has already transformed the lives of hundreds of thousands of women in developing economies by unlocking the potential of investing in businesses committed to gender equity.

Since 2012, Root Capital has invested $621 million in gender-inclusive and women-led enterprises, reaching more than half a million women employees and farmers.

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Key Findings

As of Q2 2023, we have:

invested $621 million (of our cumulative $859 million 2025 goal) in gender-inclusive and women-led enterprises

reached 637k rural women through our lending (compared to our cumulative 2025 goal of 1.2 million)

reached all-time highs in our lending portfolio, with gender-inclusive businesses and women-led businesses representing 62% and 32% of our portfolio, respectively

provided 48 clients with Gender Equity Advisory (GEA) services, well on our way to our annual goal of 57 clients

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Root Capital launched the Women in Agriculture Initiative (WAI) in 2012 to identify and address the systemic inequities that rural women face. Since then, the WAI has grown to an organization-wide strategy reaching more than 637,000 women farmers and employees across the globe.

To learn more about how you can partner with Root Capital’s Women in Agriculture Initiative, please contact communications@rootcapital.org.

To interview Root Capital’s Director of Women in Agriculture Initiative, or request that she speak at your event, please see Leonor Gutiérrez’s speaker profile.

Media Inquiries: To speak to a gender lens investing expert and/or female agricultural business leader about these findings, please contact communications@rootcapital.org.