At sunrise, across fields, markets and processing centres around the world, many women begin their day. They harvest crops, sort and dry produce, process goods and prepare them for sale. Their work sustains local economies and supplies food to markets near and far.
From shea butter cooperatives in West Africa to spice farms in Asia, cocoa-growing regions in Latin America and the cross-border trade routes that bring these products to market, women are at the heart of agri-food trade. But accessing regional and international markets depends on capacity to meet food safety, animal and plant health standards.
Designed to protect consumers, safeguard plant and animal health and build trust in global markets, sanitary and phytosanitary measures are often seen as technical and assumed to affect all actors equally. In practice, this is rarely the case. They intersect with existing inequalities in ways that can make compliance more difficult for women and other vulnerable groups. Limited access to information, training, finance and support systems, combined with smaller-scale operations and reduced decision-making power, can affect their ability to comply with these SPS requirements.
This, in turn, shapes who is able to benefit from new market opportunities.
"Gender inequality is not only a socioeconomic issue. It is also a risk factor for SPS systems. An SPS system that is not inclusive is less effective, less resilient and less credible."
H.E. Sabine Bakyono Kanzie, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Burkina Faso to Geneva
Turning commitment into practice
Addressing these challenges is now central to efforts to strengthen SPS systems and facilitate safe trade.
Through its global partnership, the Standards and Trade Development Facility (STDF) supports developing countries' capacity to meet international food safety, animal and plant health requirements. Increasingly, this involves looking at how these systems work in practice, and ensuring they are inclusive and accessible to all those involved in trade.
The STDF Gender Action Plan translates this ambition into a more structured approach. It focuses on strengthening women’s capacity to meet SPS requirements, while encouraging a more systematic integration of equity and inclusion considerations across SPS capacity development efforts.
In practical terms, this means paying closer attention to who benefits from SPS interventions and how. Projects are encouraged to identify the specific challenges women face from the outset, integrate targeted actions where needed and track progress using disaggregated data. It also calls for stronger awareness, knowledge sharing and collaboration across institutions and partners, so that equal opportunities are built into how SPS systems are designed, implemented and improved over time.
Where it comes to life
Across regions, STDF-supported projects are putting these principles into practice, showing how more inclusive approaches can strengthen compliance with international SPS standards while expanding trade opportunities for women and other vulnerable groups.
In Nigeria, the story begins in processing centres where women have long been at the heart of the shea and sesame value chains. Yet for many years, limited access to training, modern equipment and quality management systems constrained their ability to meet international standards. Through an STDF-supported project implemented by the International Trade Centre (ITC), in collaboration with the Nigeria Export Promotion Council, over 1,000 women processors were trained in food safety and quality management practices, while new and upgraded processing facilities, along with improved traceability systems, helped raise product quality, traceability and safety. As a result, women-led cooperatives have been able to achieve certification, access international buyers and increase their incomes, opening the door to markets that were previously out of reach.
"At the time STDF came, we were not market-friendly. Our butter wasn’t market-friendly. We couldn’t move beyond that space. Today, we can say our products can sit on any shelf internationally."
Mobola Saoge, Founder, Shea Origin Ltd., Nigeria
In Senegal, change began behind the scenes. An STDF-funded project led by COLEAD with the National Plant Protection Organization, the Direction de Protection des Végétaux, set out to strengthen phytosanitary controls for the horticulture value chain, while taking a closer look at who they serve. An analysis carried out at the outset revealed gaps in how women were represented and supported across the horticulture value chain, and informed the revision of the phytosanitary law, including the integration of provisions to promote equal opportunities. Since then, women’s groups have become part of the project's consultations, decision-making processes and governance. Their perspectives are shaping policies and capacity-building efforts in ways that better reflect realities on the ground. This is helping build a more inclusive horticulture value chain, where policies, practices and opportunities better reflect the realities of those who drive the sector.
Across Southern Africa, small-scale cross-border trade in agri-food products is a lifeline for millions, and women are at its centre. In Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia, they make up the majority of these traders, moving goods across borders, supporting their families and sustaining local economies. Yet their work often remains informal, and the barriers they face, from limited access to information and training to the costs and complexity of compliance, can make meeting SPS requirements particularly challenging. To better understand and address these barriers, an STDF project, implemented by CABI with local cross-border trade associations, is taking a closer look at these realities. Through a large-scale survey and consultations with diverse stakeholders, it is identifying the specific SPS challenges women traders face when complying with international standards, as well as the reasons many continue to operate through informal channels. One of the main challenges include how requirements are communicated and accessed in practice:
“When you reach the border, you find forms to fill in, often in a language you don’t understand. Information needs to be shared with women traders in ways they can understand, including in local languages, so they can comply with the requirements.”
Christine Phiri Sikombe, Secretary General, Cross-Border Traders Association of Zambia
High in the hills of Nepal, ginger farming has long been a source of livelihood for many women, often as one of the few viable crops in challenging conditions. Efforts to strengthen food safety and plant health have helped transform the ginger value chain. An STDF project, co-financed by the Enhanced Integrated Framework and implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organization strengthened practices from farm to market. Nearly 2,000 farmers, most of them women, were trained in good agricultural practices, pest management and post-harvest handling, while new washing facilities improved product quality and reduced losses. As a result, post-harvest losses fell by around 30%, incomes increased by more than 60% in some cases, and improved processing facilities support around 8,000 households, opening access to regional markets. Women-led cooperatives have strengthened their role across the value chain, turning a subsistence crop into a more reliable and rewarding source of income.
Scaling what works
These experiences show that more inclusive approaches lead to stronger SPS outcomes and deliver lasting results that benefit men and women.
Across STDF-supported projects, a consistent message emerges: when projects begin with an inclusion analysis, consider social and economic realities, adapt to specific needs, and ensure women’s participation in decision‑making, they can achieve better compliance and market access outcomes.
The challenge now is to scale these approaches and apply them more consistently. As demand for safe trade continues to grow, more inclusive SPS systems will be key to ensuring that a wider range of producers, processors and traders can meet international standards, seize new opportunities – and that no one is left behind.
Recognized as a catalyst in this area, the STDF has helped identify, test and promote practical approaches for more inclusive SPS capacity development. Its work has informed and influenced a wide range of partners, including CABI, COLEAD and the International Plant Protection Convention, supporting the development of more inclusive tools, guidance and capacity-building approaches that are now being applied and scaled more broadly across SPS systems.
At the end of the day, compliance with SPS standards opens doors to international markets, but only if everyone has a fair chance to walk through them.