31/03/2026
🌍 From Yaoundé, with purpose.
This week, LadyAgri Impact Investment Hub was at the heart of two landmark moments on the sidelines of WTO MC14 — the 14th Ministerial Conference, held March 26–29, 2026 in Yaoundé.
On Wednesday, our Founder & CEO Hilary Barry contributed to the International Trade Centre SheTrades Forum, helping shape high-level reform discussions on women's access to international trade, finance and sustainable development.
On Thursday, she moderated the **Women's Forum organised by the Cocoa and Coffee interprofession CICC Officiel with the theme *"Women at the Heart of Sustainable Cocoa and Coffee Value Chains"* — bringing together not just Women but also men leaders from across Africa at Yaoundé City Hall.
The in the room was rare and a real breakthrough. 👌🏽
The forum carried not only institutional weight but a paradigm shift from usual listing of gender based co straints to solutions. Attending alongside women producers, processors and value chain actors were representatives from the Union, International Cocoa organisation (ICCO), International Coffee Organization, Acram Robusta Africain, and Cameroon 's Ministries of Trade, Agriculture, Research and Land Titles, Ministry of Women— a signal that the policy and investment community is listening.
The conversations were rich, grounded, and urgent:
✅ Women's lived experiences across cocoa and coffee value chains — from bean to bar, cherry to specialty cup
✅ Institutional and partnership models that genuinely move the needle on empowerment and job creation
✅ Pathways to skills, finance, technology and markets — with women not just included, but leading
LadyAgri shared concrete field evidence from our **FemmesForce programme in Cameroon** — four years of building women's economic agency across cocoa communities and agri-food value chains.
The calibre of engagement — from the EU, international commodity bodies, government ministries, banks, buyers and investors — gave us real optimism about what's possible when inclusion is treated as strategy, not afterthought.
To every participant, panellist and partner: thank you. The solutions are here. The will is building. Now we scale.