Women represent nearly half the agricultural workforce - 70 percent in many parts of the world, including sub-Saharan Africa - but disproportionately, they work on smallholder farms with little to no income. If women had the same access to resources as their male counterparts, they could increase their yields by 20 to 30 percent and, in the process, feed up to 150 million undernourished people.

While Securing Water for Food already prioritizes the engagement of women-owned and women-led enterprises, SWFF and its partners recognize that more can be done. Earlier this month, the SWFF Technical Assistance Facility completed a gender report to further analyze what factors into this gap, and how the SWFF program, its Founding Partners, the SWFF Technical Assistance Facility, and the program's innovators can better incorporate gender into their goals and activities.