Kilimora's Gender-Lens Investing Strategic Framework establishes a unified operating model in which women's economic participation functions as a binding system constraint across agriculture, clean energy, and special programmes. The framework embeds gender-lens design within product architecture, capital allocation, research methodology, and institutional governance, ensuring that climate action translates into measurable and equitable economic access.
Over 60 percent of AgriKonnekt participants are women receiving direct individual payments. The organisation targets enabling 5,000 women to access formal climate finance systems by 2028, alongside directing 60 percent of procurement expenditure to women-controlled entities within a three-year horizon.
This framework formalises Kilimora's institutional commitment to integrating gender inclusion across all operational tracks. Women's participation is treated as a system-level requirement that shapes how products are built, how financial flows are structured, how research is conducted, and how partnerships are selected.
Women constitute the majority of smallholder farmers across Sub-Saharan Africa while remaining underrepresented within formal financial systems that govern climate-linked income distribution. The framework addresses these structural inefficiencies through targeted interventions that expand access, strengthen economic agency, and ensure accountability through measurable outputs.
Women account for over 60 percent of the agricultural labour force across Sub-Saharan Africa, according to data from the Food and Agriculture Organization between 2022 and 2024. Despite this, access to financial systems, digital infrastructure, and institutional decision-making remains disproportionately limited.
This imbalance is reinforced by system design:
- Financial services rely on documentation and verification systems that exclude individuals without formal identity credentials
- Digital platforms assume access to smartphones and stable connectivity
- Institutional structures prioritise formal employment histories and fixed asset ownership
These conditions systematically disadvantage women within rural and agricultural contexts. The documentation gap remains a critical constraint — across East and Central Africa, women possess verified identity credentials at rates 15 to 25 percentage points lower than men. This gap restricts access to Know Your Customer compliant financial systems, limiting participation in mobile money services, savings mechanisms, and credit markets. Exclusion within one layer propagates exclusion across the system.
The framework rests on three interlocking pillars that together ensure gender inclusion operates as system architecture — not an add-on programme.
Gender-lens design is applied consistently — but contextually — across each of Kilimora's three operational tracks.
The framework establishes clear targets across the financial inclusion pipeline. By 2028, 7,500 women will be enrolled with individual payment accounts.
Registration-to-Active-Use Pipeline
Active usage targets project over 11,000 monthly transactions, reflecting sustained engagement. Conversion rates from registration to active use are modelled at approximately 70 percent, consistent with regulatory and operational constraints observed across mobile money ecosystems.
Measurement focuses on access, utilisation, income generation, and decision-making power. Indicators include enrolment rates, payment distribution, transaction volumes, employment outcomes, and procurement allocation. All metrics are disaggregated by gender and additional demographic variables.
A Gender Advisory Committee provides independent oversight, comprising community representatives, gender specialists, and academic experts. Quarterly reviews assess performance against targets and inform strategic adjustments.
Leadership accountability is distributed across organisational roles, ensuring integration of gender-lens principles within product development, research, financial management, and operational delivery.
Reporting Cadence
Annual Gender-Lens Progress Reports document performance, supported by independently verified data and detailed analysis of outcomes — published alongside Kilimora's broader Annual Impact Assessment.
Kilimora's Gender-Lens Investing Strategic Framework positions gender inclusion as a structural requirement within climate finance and agricultural systems. The framework aligns technology, capital, and institutional processes to ensure that women's contributions to environmental systems translate into measurable economic outcomes.
Execution is defined by quantified targets, transparent reporting, and continuous learning. The framework establishes a scalable model in which climate action, financial inclusion, and gender equity operate as interconnected components of a single system — producing sustained and verifiable impact across communities.
Author: Gender Advisory Committee & Strategy Lead