Success Stories

• Empowering Female Farmers in Zambia to Succeed in Business


• Overcoming Barriers to Market Acces


• Working Together for Business Success


• Working Women Organize for Improved Representation


• Female Farmers Cook Up New Products for Good Business

Our Experience

Zambia Women’s Improved Marketing and Asset Control Project (WIMAC)

Project Description

The 21-month Walmart Foundation-funded Women’s Improved Marketing and Asset Control (WIMAC) Project was part of and endeavored to facilitate improved livelihoods for 45,000 farmers (50 percent of whom would be women) to overcome barriers to women’s participation in the market and give them greater access to lucrative and nutritious crops. Because of these efforts, WIMAC trained thousands of farmers, built the capacity of hundreds of Zambian government staff, provided targeted technical assistance to women’s groups, and fostered meaningful and long-lasting business relationships with input providers and buyers.

Project Approach

WIMAC partnered with able and trusted members of the local community to promote inclusive access to markets for smallholder farmers in Eastern Province (EP) and peri-urban Lusaka, targeting groundnut and soybean value chains. WIMAC’s efforts focused on four interlinked components:

• Enhanced capacity of farmer organizations to meet member needs
• Improved production and post-harvest practices
• Women’s empowerment and leadership
• Market linkages between buyers, suppliers, and supporting service providers

WIMAC identified the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) and the Ministry of Community Development, Mother and Child Health (MCDMCH or MCD) as able partners with trained staff embedded in the community who were trusted sources of information. These two ministries expanded WIMAC’s network of resources and allowed the project to increase the scale and effectiveness of its interventions.

Impact and Accomplishments

By the Project’s completion, WIMAC exceeded its training goals with 47,460 farmers (58% of which were women) trained in post-harvest handling and 48,674 farmers (57% of which were women) trained in improved productivity. In addition, 16,685 farmers were trained in group marketing and capacity building.

As a result of these trainings, club registration increased by 155% in the reporting districts with 824 new clubs registered since July of 2015. In addition to new clubs, membership in existing clubs rose by 17% based on the number of active members recorded in the clubs.

In addition, WIMAC sponsored 12 business linkages events to facilitate market relationships between buyers, suppliers, service providers, and more than 1,000 farmer group leaders. These relationships resulted in 2,992 farmers selling more than $340,000 USD worth of groundnuts and soya beans.

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