The Blooming Maasai

Introduction

For generations, the women in my community have been the unseen web holding our society together the cornerstone of our families and local economies. Yet, their voices have been a whisper, their labor a backdrop to a story they didn’t author. Unseen, unheard, and unrepresented, they have fought for their place with quiet tenacity. Today, they have emerged not just as participants, but as our best hope for climate resilience.

As UN Women states, “Every day, they feed communities, protect the environment, and power sustainable development.” But why a specific focus on rural women? Because they are the foundational engine of our entire society. The pastoralists who supply milk and meat, and the farmers who grow the food for urban centers, are predominantly rural women. They are the primary custodians of the land, water, and forests we all depend on.

Therefore, empowering a rural woman is a systemic solution. It creates a powerful ripple effect that simultaneously advances goals from Zero Hunger (SDG 2) and Gender Equality (SDG 5) to Affordable Clean Energy (SDG 7) and Climate Action (SDG 13). When you invest in her, you don’t just patch the social fabric; you rewire our entire system for resilience from the ground up. This is the call to action of ‘Rural Women Rising.’

The Foundational Paradox

The paradox is stark: the bedrock of resilience is often the most vulnerable.

The foundational paradox is stark and the data confirms it. Across sub-Saharan Africa, women remain the backbone of food systems, providing much of the agricultural labor and sustaining families through farming, trading, and cooking. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), women produce between 60 and 80 percent of the food in many developing countries, underscoring their central role in food security and rural livelihoods (FAO, n.d.). Yet, this contribution is often undervalued and unequally rewarded. Recent World Bank analyses, however, caution that this figure varies by context, with women’s agricultural labor shares ranging from 30 to 60 percent depending on the country and crop still a significant, but often overlooked, share (Palacios-López et al., 2017; World Bank, 2014).

Despite their critical role, women are disproportionately affected by climate shocks, facing higher vulnerability due to limited access to land, finance, and adaptive technologies (World Bank, 2025). Studies show that climate change intensifies existing inequalities, threatening women’s livelihoods and community resilience across Africa (Awiti et al., 2022). The injustice deepens when viewed through a global lens: UN Women’s Gender Snapshot 2023 projects that if current trends persist, over 340 million women and girls will still live in extreme poverty by 2030 (UN Women, 2023).

And yet, amid these sobering realities lies hope. The same women tilling the soil, managing water, and cooking over traditional stoves also hold the keys to transformative solutions from adopting climate-smart farming techniques to leading clean cooking initiatives that reduce emissions and improve health outcomes (Clean Cooking Alliance, 2024). Empowering these women is not charity; it is climate justice and perhaps the most powerful pathway to sustainable resilience.

From the Kitchen to the Economy: A Blueprint for Change

The solutions women champion are often dismissed as “small-scale.” But look closer, and you see a blueprint for systemic change.

• As Climate Adaptors: Across rural Africa, women are reviving indigenous, drought-resistant crop varieties and creating community seed banks, thereby safeguarding biodiversity, enhancing resilience, and ensuring local food security. For example, in Uganda a women-led cooperative used local seeds, seed sharing and seed banks to strengthen household nutrition and autonomy. Another study found that women prepare and manage seed banks in agro-ecological systems and thereby contribute to local economies and climate resilience.
• As Mitigation Champions & Energy Entrepreneurs: The current energy system has a fundamental bug in the kitchens of millions of women: the daily grind of fuel collection, inefficient stoves, harmful smoke, and stolen time. Clean cooking isn’t just a health or development intervention: it’s a climate adaptation and mitigation lever. The latest African Development Bank Gender Index Review shows that scaling clean cooking is an urgent priority because women spend disproportionate time collecting fuels and depend on inefficient systems. If we shift the narrative by training women not just as users, but as technicians, sales agents and ambassadors for clean cooking, we tap into a vast, deeply embedded distribution and innovation network. Women then become architects of their energy future.
• As Economic Architects: Women are not just passive beneficiaries they are economic engines, especially in informal enterprises: farming, bead-making, trading, energy services. Their success shifts community attitudes, challenges gender norms, and inspires other women and girls. A recent article on women in agribusiness in Rwanda shows women moving from subsistence to innovation and commercialization. If we link these entrepreneurial networks with the energy transition (for example, women entrepreneurs selling or servicing clean cooking stoves, running fuel supply chains, or leveraging their local market networks), we unlock systemic change.

The Blueprint: Investing in the Web

The call to action is clear. Investing in rural women means:

• We must direct finance to grassroots, women-led clean energy enterprises.
• We must ensure land ownership and inheritance rights so women have the security to invest.
• We must platform their knowledge in policy discussions, from local councils to global forums like the upcoming International Year of Women Farmers in 2026.

Conclusion

The statement rings true: “When rural women rise, fields flourish, families thrive, and societies transform.” I see this transformation not as a distant dream, but as a quiet revolution already underway. They are rising, not with loud declarations, but with the steady hands that plant the seeds, build the businesses, sell the clean stoves, and hold the community together.

Our task is to see them, hear them, and invest in their vision. And we must be specific. The narrative of the ‘rural woman’ is often incomplete, overlooking the unique wisdom of pastoralist women whose lives are woven with the land and livestock in a delicate, mobile balance. Initiatives for them are few and far between. This is the gap I, through The Blooming Maasai am committed to filling. We must build a movement that doesn’t just include them, but is shaped by them from the very beginning.

Sources

1. African Development Bank. (2023). Africa Gender Index Report 2023.
2. Awiti, A. O., et al. (2022). Climate Change and Gender in Africa: A Review of Impact, Vulnerability and Adaptation. Frontiers in Climate.
3. Clean Cooking Alliance. (2024). Gender Parity and Clean Cooking: Policy and Advocacy Brief.
4. Food and Agriculture Organization. (n.d.). Women produce up to 80% of food in developing countries. FAO Family Farming Knowledge Platform. Retrieved from https://www.fao.org/family-farming/detail/en/c/1634537/
5. Palacios-López, A., Christiaensen, L., & Kilic, T. (2017). How much of the labor in African agriculture is provided by women? World Bank Research Observer.
6. UN Women. (2025, October 13). Statement: Rural women rising – shaping resilient futures with Beijing+30.
7. UN Women. (2023). Progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: The Gender Snapshot 2023.
8. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). (2025, April). “Women can lead Africa’s climate adaptation and ensure the sustainability of livelihoods.”
9. World Bank. (2014). Killing the Myth: Women Produce 80% of Africa’s Food. Africa Can End Poverty Blog.
10. World Bank. (2025). Women and Climate Adaptation in Rural Sub-Saharan Africa.

Case Study & Example References

• African Women’s Collaborative for Healthy Food Systems. (n.d.). “Our Seed for The Future: Women Farmers Use Seed to Create Wealth & Nourish Households”.
• FAO / Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA). (n.d.). “Women seed saver Uganda.”
• Inter Press Service. (2023). “African Women Seek to Boost Innovation and Creativity in Agribusiness.”