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LightCastle Partners has partnered with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to conduct a comprehensive mixed-methods survey examining women’s participation across agri-food value chains and its linkages to household nutrition outcomes in Bangladesh.
Women play a central role in Bangladesh’s agri-food systems, contributing across production, aggregation, processing, marketing, informal trade and household food preparation. Their participation, however, remains concentrated in low-productivity and informal segments, including unpaid family work, home-based processing and micro-scale trading, which limits access to assets and finance, mobility, skills and higher-value market opportunities.
Alongside this, persistent nutrition challenges among women and children suggest that increased economic participation does not automatically translate into improved household outcomes. Intra-household decision-making, unpaid care responsibilities, time use and social norms all shape how income influences dietary diversity and food security. While these areas have been examined separately, integrated evidence connecting them remains limited.
Through this assignment, LightCastle Partners will design and implement a mixed-methods approach covering women’s economic participation in selected agri-food value chains, including informal segments and women-led agri-SMEs, applying an integrated food systems and gender assessment framework.
The work will also examine how women’s economic participation, agency and decision-making relate to household food environments and nutrition outcomes, alongside an assessment of the policy, institutional, and market environment shaping participation in agri-food systems.
The findings are intended to inform policy dialogue and the design of strategic future initiatives related to women-led agri-SME strengthening, inclusive market systems development, nutrition-sensitive agriculture programming, and gender-responsive investment planning in Bangladesh.
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