Connecting Rwandan women-owned businesses to international markets

We’re thrilled to be partnering with The International Trade Center to digitalize the coffee supply chain of women-owned small and medium sized businesses in Rwanda to help improve their access to the global market and promote a more inclusive trade overall.

Coffee is central to Rwanda. It’s a key driver of economic growth, stability, and improved income for over 450,000 coffee farmers. As the country’s leading export crop, it has contributed an average of 24% to total agricultural exports over the last decade. Agriculture contributes 26% to GDP, with 79.5% of the population reliant on mostly subsistence agriculture. It is, therefore, key to overcoming the challenges of COVID-19 that has pushed many people back into poverty.

The global pandemic has shown us the power of digitalization in staying connected to existing markets as well as in reaching new ones. We believe that by using blockchain technology for traceability and transparency, we can help increase the visibility of women-owned small holder farmers to international buyers, bring their products to a global audience and help them build a stronger business.

We’ll be running a pilot study on Nova Coffee, a woman-owned coffee processor engaged with 2,880 local small-scale farmers.The results of the pilot will be shared during SheTrades Global in Dubai in February 2022.

We’re honoured to be working together with ITC on this pilot project, seeing yet another powerful initiative using blockchain, in action.

You can read more about the project here:https://intracen.org/news-and-events/news/tracing-rwandan-coffee-digitally-for-inclusive-trade