2SCALE - Aya
Building a community of women entrepreneurs
Inspiring, training and connecting women entrepreneurs with each other
Partners
Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs
IFDC
SNV
Expertise
Business model innovation
Gender and diversity
Sectors
Food and agriculture
Markets
Kenya
Ethiopia
Nigeria
Others
Timeline
2019 to 2022
Unleashing women entrepreneurship
Empowering women entrepreneurs is vital in boosting economic productivity and growth across the world; and it is essential for the achievement of sustainable development. This is why we pay specific attention to fostering and supporting the growth of female entrepreneurship.
Aya is one of the key 2SCALE initiatives with direct and tangible impact on female entrepreneurship. It is a 6-month entrepreneurship track for women in agribusiness in Africa that builds on the experiences of the 2Scale program.
Aya was first launched in Ghana and building on the successes was in 2019 implemented in Ethiopia. Going through three phases, Aya provides inspiration, training and connection that results in improved and professionalized business models of female agri-entrepreneurs.
Impact
Community of women entrepreneurs established
150 entrepreneurs inspired and trained
In gender relevant topics
A community of peers created
For support after training program
The Innovation
Aya combines online and offline training in addition to peer to peer learning. Going through 3 phases, Aya aims to provide inspiration, training and connection that results in improved and professionalized business models of female agri-entrepreneurs.
Get inspired: Through sharing stories, successes, failures, articles and more of already successful female agribusiness entrepreneurs on our website and via our social media channels we hope to inspire other women to persist in making their agribusiness successful.
Get trained: In our training we encourage female entrepreneurs to have a closer look at their business model using our own business model canvas tools, specifically targeting women in agribusiness. The tools will take them through topics like customer focused value propositions, finance, pitching and more.
Get connected: Ayal links the female entrepreneurs with already successful female agribusiness entrepreneurs to learn the tricks of the trade and get the roadmap they need towards success. But more importantly: we link female entrepreneurs to each other through online mentor groups so they can keep on dreaming, doing and persisting together.
“I am thankful for the rich network of women in agribusiness that Aya provided me. Working through the business model canvas, I changed my business model to include new clients. I remember setting a five-year goal of managing 20,000 acres of farmland in the training. In less than two years after Aya, we’ve signed up projects with clients reaching a collection of 51,000 acres and still counting!”
Talk to us
Curious about this project?
Lotte-Marie and Eyerusalem are happy to tell you more about it.
