Join us on Wednesday, March 31 at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time, for a Women’s Empowerment in Beyond-Production Activities virtual seminar.
Women engage in a variety of agricultural roles across the value chain. Many approaches, promising practices, and tools to support women’s empowerment in production have emerged in recent years. However, much less is known about women’s engagement, benefit, and empowerment in beyond-production activities such as input and service provision, marketing, agro-processing, and retail.
In this webinar, we will share findings from a landscape analysis conducted by the Feed the Future Advancing Women’s Empowerment (AWE) program that examines women’s empowerment in beyond-production activities.
First, we will explore common approaches to empowering women in beyond-production activities. Then, we’ll do a deep dive into concrete ways to collect and use data to understand and implement good practices in women’s empowerment in beyond-production.
This discussion, led by AWE consortium member ACDI/VOCA, will be followed by a Q&A session during which the audience will have an opportunity to ask questions about women’s empowerment in beyond-production activities.
Presenters
- Melissa Matlock, Associate Director of Gender and Social Inclusion, ACDI/VOCA
Melissa Matlock is Associate Director of Gender and Social Inclusion at ACDI/VOCA. Melissa conducts research and develops strategies to integrate women and youth empowerment into projects and proposals. Melissa has over 10 years of experience working on gender, finance, value chains, and market development issues. Prior to joining ACDI/VOCA, Melissa provided technical assistance and managed agricultural finance and market development projects at Connexus Corporation and the SEEP Network. She also served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Costa Rica. Melissa holds a BA in global affairs and economics from North Central College and an MS with distinction in gender, development, and globalization from The London School of Economics and Political Science.
- Jennifer Himmelstein, Director of Corporate Analysis and Technical Assurance, ACDI/VOCA
Jennifer Himmelstein is the Director of Corporate Analysis and Technical Assurance at ACDI/VOCA. Jennifer provides technical oversight of monitoring and evaluation processes across ACDI/VOCA’s global portfolio. She facilitates organizational learning by promoting the use of advanced analytics and collaborating, learning, and adapting mechanisms. Jennifer has a doctorate in Plant Sciences, with a focus in plant pathology. She has worked in food security for over a decade, including roles with USDA, USAID, and the EPA.
- Jenn Williamson, Vice President of Gender and Social Inclusion, ACDI/VOCA
Jenn Williamson is Vice President of Gender and Social Inclusion at ACDI/VOCA, where she leads a team of advisors in developing and implementing ACDI/VOCA’s organizational policy, strategy, guidelines, and resources to promote gender equality and inclusion of marginalized groups. Jenn also serves as the gender and agriculture systems advisor for the Advancing Women’s Empowerment program. She previously led the women’s economic empowerment learning track under the USAID-funded Leveraging Economic Opportunities project. Prior to joining ACDI/VOCA, Jenn was a global technical advisor at Counterpart International. She holds a BA in English and studies in women and gender from the University of Virginia, an MFA in creative writing from the University of Maryland, College Park, and an MA and PhD in English with a research concentration in gender, race, class, and intersectionality from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
- Aslihan (Asli) Kes, Senior Gender Advisor, USAID Bureau for Resilience and Food Security
Asli is a Senior Gender Advisor in RFS with nearly 20 years of experience working on gender issues in agricultural and rural development, more recently with a focus on women’s off-farm employment and entrepreneurship, financial inclusion, and solutions to unpaid care. Asli’s work has also examined the economic costs of gender inequality, including through household food insecurity and malnutrition. Prior to joining RFS, she worked as a Senior Economist at the International Center for Research on Women, where she led research, conducted evaluations, and supported partner organizations to build their gender capacity. Asli is a native Turkish speaker and has basic knowledge of French.
- Jamie Holbrook, Knowledge Management Coordinator, Feed the Future Advancing Women’s Empowerment Program
Jamie Holbrook is the Knowledge Management Coordinator for the Advancing Women’s Empowerment program at EnCompass, where she leads knowledge capture and dissemination of AWE’s learning products. Jamie has contributed to communications and knowledge management on several USAID-funded agricultural development, private sector engagement, and CLA projects. She holds a BA in International Affairs from the George Washington University and an MSc in International Development from the University of Glasgow.