Chibuzo Nwagboso: Finance Alone Cannot Unlock Young Women’s Potential in Africa’s Agrifood Systems
Financial access alone is unlikely to close the economic opportunity gap facing young women in Africa’s agrifood systems unless it is combined with measures addressing mobility, asset ownership and social norms, according to Chibuzo Nwagboso of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
Nwagboso spoke to DNE Africa on the sidelines of the Africa Food Systems (AFS) Forum 2026 in Kigali, following a session on women-focused and inclusive food systems.
She discussed findings from IFPRI’s research with the Mastercard Foundation on young women’s aspirations and economic participation in Africa’s agrifood systems, including research examining the barriers that limit women’s access to finance and higher-value opportunities.
What financial models or policy interventions can help close the gender capital gap in Africa’s agrifood value chains?
Nwagboso: What tends to make the biggest difference is combining financial access with broader economic opportunities. Finance is more effective when it does not operate in isolation.
Our IFPRI research in northern Nigeria found that limited collateral and mobility can confine young women to small-scale processing, leaving them with few opportunities to expand. At the same time, young people are using collective savings and trust-based credit to address gaps in formal financial services.
This points to a need for financial products that reflect women’s circumstances, including lower-collateral lending, group-based savings and digitally inclusive services. These should also be linked to higher-return segments of agrifood value chains, including processing, aggregation and input supply.
The Nigeria for Women Project offers one example of this approach, combining Women Affinity Groups and financial services with training, mentorship and livelihood support.
This research, led by Dr. Jessica Heckert at IFPRI, is part of the broader IFPRI–Mastercard Foundation partnership on dignified and fulfilling work for young women and men in agrifood systems. The partnership includes comparative research across different African contexts.
Beyond access to finance, which social and institutional barriers are most limiting young women’s mobility and ability to own and control assets?
Nwagboso: Our research points to gender norms as a major factor shaping both employment opportunities and outcomes.
These norms influence which sectors and roles are considered acceptable for young women. They can also restrict their mobility to markets, workplaces and off-farm opportunities, as well as their ability to independently acquire and control productive assets.
We describe this as the “formal-informal institutional co-production of exclusion.” Formal barriers, such as collateral requirements and documentation, interact with informal constraints, including household decision-making, restrictions on mobility and expectations around marriage timing.
These barriers reinforce each other. As a result, addressing financial access alone can produce limited or fragile gains.
If a young woman can obtain finance but cannot travel freely to a market, decide how her income is used or control the assets she acquires, the benefits of that financial access remain constrained.
What immediate steps should policymakers at the AFS Forum prioritize to narrow the gap between young women’s aspirations and realistic market opportunities?
Nwagboso: Three priorities stand out.
First, financial products should be designed around women’s actual economic circumstances and constraints. This includes considering collateral requirements, the value chains in which women participate and the types of enterprises they can realistically access and grow.
Second, financial inclusion should be accompanied by efforts to address the informal institutional barriers that shape women’s economic choices. This means tackling constraints related to mobility, asset ownership and control, and household bargaining power, rather than assuming that finance alone will overcome them.
Third, policymakers should invest in disaggregated and comparative evidence.
Our research shows that the gender-finance gap does not look the same everywhere. Policies designed around the constraints in one location will not necessarily transfer directly to another.
Policymakers and regional institutions therefore need context-adaptive approaches based on evidence about the specific constraints facing young women in each setting.
