Women-Adapt: Enhancing the climate change adaptive capacity of smallholder farmer communities in the Poro Region, focusing on vulnerable women and youth

Côte d’Ivoire, a coastal country in the Gulf of Guinea, is expected to be hit by rising temperatures, longer dry-spells and more intense and irregular precipitation patterns in the near-term future. In the Poro region, 90 per cent of households make a living from agriculture, a sector directly impacted by the changing climate. Harvest loss in maize, rice and vegetables threaten to offset the local economy, endangering the livelihoods of these households, many of them female-headed.  

To cope with these pressures, Women-Adapt will adopt a gender-transformative approach to overcome technical, institutional, knowledge and financial barriers to enhance the adaptive capabilities and resilience of smallholder farmer communities in the Poro region, focusing on women and youth Farmer Organizations. The project is based on tried and tested climate-risk management approaches placing at its center women awareness, financial inclusiveness, leadership, and participation in all its activities. The project is designed to synergise with the Inclusive Green Financing Initiative I (IGREENFIN I, FP183) to finance sustainable business plans in the Poro region.