• • Two Models, One Goal: Tanager showcased how both direct implementation (SELEVER II) and technical support (IGNITE) models effectively integrate gender and nutrition into agriculture programs across Africa. 
  • Empowering Men as Allies: In Burkina Faso, SELEVER II’s EBENE groups empowered women and engaged men to shift social norms, leading to improved nutrition, communication, and women’s decision-making within households. 
  • Institutional and Private Sector Transformation: IGNITE helped 35 institutions strengthen gender and nutrition integration, while private sector partners adopted inclusive strategies—demonstrating scalable pathways for systemic change. 

On January 30, Tanager joined the Livestock Data for Decisions (LD4D) webinar to demonstrate how data-driven strategies in agriculture are transforming gender and nutrition outcomes across Africa. Drawing from two high-impact models—direct implementation and technical support—Tanager showcased insights from its flagship SELEVER II and IGNITE programs, proving that systemic change is not only possible, but it’s happening right now. 

Through engaging discussions and presentations, both panelists and participants shared best practices on integrating gender and nutrition in agriculture and identified new avenues for scaling impact through collaboration.  

During the session on project results, John Kabue, IGNITE+ Learning and Impact Manager, highlighted Tanager’s approach to developing high-impact, multisectoral partnerships that fuel our programs’ successes.  From community leaders to private sector actors to government agencies, each initiative focuses on harnessing collaboration across all levels to drive systems change, ultimately creating lasting improvements in nutrition, gender equity, and economic resilience.  

Poultry, Power, and Progress: Women at the Heart of Systems Change in Burkina Faso 

In Burkina Faso, for example, Tanager’s SELEVER II program works to improve the nutritional status of women and children by advancing women’s economic empowerment through increased poultry production. However, harmful social norms – especially those limiting women’s decision-making and access to economic opportunities – continue to significantly undermine progress. 

To address this challenge, Tanager introduced a unique approach: engaging men as drivers of gender equality through the Ecole du Bien Etre, de la Nutrition et de l’Equité (EBENE), or School of Well-Being, Nutrition and Equity groups. These EBENE groups provide foundational trainings on personal topics such as self-esteem, confidence, decision-making and household nutrition. As sessions progress, the modules evolve to address gender dynamics – focusing on sharing power with women in the household and recognizing how women’s empowerment ultimately strengthens family and community resilience.  

This approach positions men not as obstacles, but as partners and agents of change in women’s empowerment efforts. To date, more than 1,489 EBENE groups have participated in these sessions, with baseline, midline and endling assessments revealing significant improvements in men’s behaviours and attitudes across key domains including:  communications, confidence, dealing with problems, decision-making , entrepreneurial spirit, household rules and responsibilities, initiative, leadership, learning from success/failure, nutrition, teamwork and women’s empowerment.  

An independent evaluation of the SELEVER II program confirmed that the EBENE intervention is not only changing attitudes – it’s also changing outcomes. Results show that this approach can have a positive impact on household dietary diversity, nutritious food consumption, and women’s empowerment – particularly in areas affected by conflict and insecurity. As Tanager continues to scale SELEVER II’s impact, EBENE groups offer a promising model for transforming household dynamics and catalyzing systems change from the inside out. Read more on the impact of EBENE groups.  

IGNITE: Sparking Institutional Change Across Africa

Between 2018 and 2024, Tanager’s IGNITE project partnered with 35 targeted agriculture institutions across 18 African countries to provide targeted technical assistance – helping them achieve significant strides in integrating gender and nutrition into their programs and internal operations.  

Led by Tanager’s team of technical experts, each institution received tailored support aligned with its unique needs and goals for gender integration and mainstreaming, women’s empowerment, and improving nutrition outcomes. This support took many forms, including staff sensitizations and trainings, institutional audits on gender and nutrition capacity, and budget reviews.  

As a result of this customized approach, 70% of institutions secured leadership buy-in and strengthened their institutional commitment to gender equity and inclusion. Additionally, 75% of clients increased their staff awareness of the importance of integrating gender and nutrition into their programming and interventions, with 12 institutions ultimately revising their monitoring and evaluation frameworks to better capture the impact of their gender and nutrition initiatives.  Read more on IGNITE results 

Unlocking the Private Sector to Achieve Gender Transformation

The webinar also underscored the catalytic leadership role the private sector can play in advancing gender equity by investing in women to drive entrepreneurship, improve nutrition outcomes and engage as providers of untapped services across the agricultural value chain.  

Bernadette Muyomi, IGNITE+ Gender Expert, shared insights on the impact of the technical assistance provided to private sector members of the Africa Poultry Multiplication Initiative (APMI), including Silverlands, Hamara Foods, and Amo Farm. With Tanager’s support, these companies expanded their gender-inclusive strategies -scaling efforts in the private sector to promote gender equity, increase egg consumption, and improve women’s economic empowerment. 

Using a market systems approach, Tanager engaged stakeholders across the value chain to achieve gender outcomes. This included building institutional capacity and supporting partners to develop actionable gender strategies, enhance M&E systems to measure gender outcomes, and ensure gender and nutrition considerations are made at programmatic level. 

“Tanager leveraged the use of social mapping tools and social and behavior change (SBC) strategies to promote increased consumption of poultry products and greater involvement of women across the poultry value chain, despite the prevailing social norms,” said Muyomi.   

In the case of SELEVER II, Sokhna Gaye, Tanager’s Gender Expert in West Africa, explained how the program applied similar strategies to target marginalized actors, including women, and promote inclusivity.   

“We trained local agribusiness entrepreneurs on poultry production and business skills, who then transformed to become village vaccinators (VVVs) and were key in offering fee-based services such as extension services, trainings, aggregation, and sale and marketing of poultry products,” said Gaye.  

An endline survey revealed that 76% of the poultry producers in the project area vaccinated their birds – a rate 23% higher than the national average. The utilization of VVV services paired with the adoption of improved production practices led to reduced poultry mortality, increased revenue, enhanced access to markets and  greater adoption of digital tools. Overall, these efforts resulted in an average household income increase of $257 per year in the project area.  

From Inclusion to Impact: The Ripple Effect in Action

Based on Tanager’s three decades of experience implementing gender-transformative and nutrition-sensitive approaches, these two models illustrate that when we invest in women, shift social norms, utilise data-driven insights, and support institutions to lead with inclusion, the ripple effect is powerful. Whether it’s a rural farmer in Burkina Faso or a national private sector actor in Nigeria, transformation is possible. When women are empowered – agricultural productivity rises, families are better nourished, and entire communities benefit from improved livelihoods and food security. 

Watch the webinar recap