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

Inclusive Business
Empowerment

Sectors

Nutrition 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!”

Stephany Lawson | Adibi AgroSeeders (CrownCity Fields Ltd) | Aya participant in Ghana
Talk to us

Curious about this project?

Lotte-Marie and Eyerusalem are happy to tell you more about it.

Lotte-Marie Brouwer
Eyerusalem Mitiku
Downloads

Resources

NEW! Navigating Impact - Aya Report 2024

Practical approaches to designing better agribusiness support programs for women

Webinar

Watch Aya webinar

More about Aya

Read more about Aya