The Gender Equity Index (GEI)
The Gender Equity Index (GEI) is an exciting new tool to ensure farming women can access and benefit from the services they need to be successful. The online diagnostic tool was created for companies that provide sustainability education and technical support to farmers and farmer organizations. These Extension and Advisory Service (EAS) provision companies include coffee and cocoa traders like ECOM, EFICO and Caravela, development organizations like Lutheran World Relief and Technoserve and government agencies like the Colombian Coffee Federation and ANACAFE. The tool helps to ensure that these organizations’ programs reach and benefit farming women equally to men.
This is a scalable approach, focused on building the gender equity training capacity of organizations already providing extension services, post-harvest quality assurance programs and market access support to global producers.
Gender equity gaps
Clarifiy gender equity gaps and strengths within suppliers’ current sustainability and responsible sourcing programs
Next Steps
Proposes recommendations that these organizations can use to prioritize high-value actions and specific next steps
key performance indicators
Provides key performance indicators to these organizations and to the end-market buyers that support them
monitor progress
Establishes the capacity to monitor gender equity progress year over year in a consistent evidence-based way for the first time.
Take the Assessment
The 5 Domains of Gender Equity for Extension and Advisory Service (EAS) Providers
A service provider responds to 67 questions along these 5 domains, and returns a comprehensive report with recommendations for action.

The GEI process sparked a very good conversation between the two [origin teams who took the GEI] in terms of what we need to do to further integrate gender into all our projects. Both origins have very specific women-focused projects that don’t really touch the whole supply chain, the GEI helped them to see what we could do in the whole supply chain to address equality at a larger scale. [The process helped…] to generate that conversation and help us think as we go forward, so we’re happy to roll it out to our other origins.
From a roaster standpoint, the GEI tool is a great way to engage our business partners and begin the necessary discussions on gender equity. The essence of the GEI tool and program will add considerable value to our sustainability programs, providing meaningful impact for our coffee communities and partners.
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