Women’s economic participation in B’Ayoba

B’Ayoba (pvt) Ltd is an AECF grantee in Zimbabwe dedicated to producing, processing, and marketing fruit from the baobab tree. The business model involves the collection and primary
processing of baobab fruits in remote rural areas in Zimbabwe. Villagers collect the whole baobab fruit from the trees for transport to B’Ayoba collection centers, where they are checked for quality before being transported to a central processing plant for export to North America and Europe. This case study examines the level of women’s participation and finds that they have been the primary beneficiaries of the project, receiving 63% of the total paid out to baobab collectors. The data used is drawn from B’Ayoba collectors in the Mount Darwin region, in the arid north of Zimbabwe.