Fireside Chat: Seeding Strength to Unlock Finance for Women-led Rural Enterprises and Cooperatives in Asia
Date: September 24th (Wednesday)
Time: 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM (IST) / 12:00 PM – 01:30 PM (BKK)
Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes
Platform: Zoom | REGISTER HERE
Background
Farmer Cooperatives are uniquely positioned to contribute to economic empowerment, social transformation, and environmental sustainability—making them essential vehicles for delivering on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In recognition of the crucial role cooperatives play in sustainable development, the UN has designated 2025 as the International Year of Cooperatives under the theme “Cooperatives Build a Better World.”
In this context, Heifer International Asia, in partnership with the International Cooperative Alliance Asia and Pacific (ICA-AP), is commemorating this milestone through “Seeding Strength: Empowering Farmer Cooperatives”—an awareness campaign highlighting the pivotal role of cooperatives in empowering smallholder farmers, particularly women. The campaign showcases how farmer cooperatives across Asia are driving transformative change by enabling farmers to achieve a living income, strengthen food systems, and end hunger and poverty—all while caring for the Earth.
Fireside chat: Seeding Strength to Unlock Finance for Women-led Rural Enterprises and Cooperatives
As part of this campaign, ICA-AP and Heifer International are hosting a virtual Fireside Chat focused on the theme of “Seeding Strength to Unlock Finance for Women-led Rural Enterprises and Cooperatives”— exploring innovative ways to expand access to finance for rural women agripreneurs and farmer cooperatives. Bringing together voices from philanthropy, cooperative leadership, and global funding agencies. The dialogue will spotlight opportunities to accelerate women-led rural entrepreneurship and sustainable and inclusive development in food systems.
Objectives
To explore the role of women-led farmer cooperatives in advancing rural economic empowerment across Asia.
To identify key challenges, good practices and opportunities in accessing finance for women-led agri and rural enterprises.
To bring together diverse stakeholders to discuss inclusive and gender-responsive financing strategies for cooperative enterprises.
To generate concrete recommendations for access to finance in cooperative-led enterprises that deliver on the triple bottom line—people, planet, and prosperity.
Expected Outcomes
Increased awareness of the enablers and barriers to financing women-led cooperatives and enterprises in rural contexts.
Concrete recommendations for access to finance in cooperative-led enterprises that deliver on people, planet, and prosperity.
Strengthened multi-stakeholder collaboration to build inclusive financial ecosystems for smallholder farmers.
Proposed Program Flow (Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes)
Registration: Interested people can register using this link or scan the QR code below.
