Global Development Discussion Series

From Margins to Markets: Women, Technology, and Entrepreneurial Development in Emerging Markets

Fridah Mubichi-Kut, Professor of Practice, Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University

Bio: Trained first as an international business administrator and later as a social scientist, Fridah has worked with various organizations, including former USAID-supported Feed the Future Innovation Labs. Her work is focused on understanding the role social networks and development policies play in the uptake of new agricultural technologies, gender equity and economic progress. Before joining Cornell University, she served as Director of Measurement and Evaluation within a USDA agricultural commodity research program.  Earlier, she worked with several NGOs and community-based organizations in Kenya that championed women’s development through literacy, health, and entrepreneurship. Fridah holds a PhD. from the University of Missouri and other degrees from Northeastern University (MA), Oklahoma City University (MBA), and United States International University -Africa (MSc).

Currently, Fridah is a Professor of Practice in Applied Economics and Policy at the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management and the SC Johnson College of Business at Cornell University. She is also the Executive Director of the Student Multidisciplinary Applied Research Teams (SMART) Program and a graduate field advisor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Outside Cornell, she holds various leadership positions, including executive board member of the Research Committee of Sociology of Agriculture and Food (RC40) within the International Sociological Association.

Abstract: Women’s entrepreneurship promotes inclusive economic growth and social transformation in emerging markets. Women entrepreneurs not only contribute to household income and job creation—particularly for other women—but also mobilize underutilized resources and serve underserved markets with contextually grounded innovations. Importantly, women entrepreneurs amplify social impact by reinvesting their earnings into health, education, and community welfare.

Despite their contributions, most of the women-led enterprises in emerging markets operate within informal and small-scale sectors. This is largely due to macroeconomic challenges that are deeply intertwined with cultural and institutional constraints. For example, cultural and social norms that prioritize domestic responsibilities and restrict property rights and women’s participation in decision-making limit access to capital and financial services. Additionally, inadequate digital infrastructure, access to transportation, energy, and varying regulatory reforms limit participation in formal markets.

Recognizing the critical role women entrepreneurs play in sustainable development, this talk draws on several empirical studies and engaged learning projects from Sub-Saharan Africa to illustrate how existing social, economic, and technological environments influence women’s entrepreneurship.

Gender Empowerment and Sustainable Development: How ethnography can help us untangle this complicated relationship

Deepti Chatti, Assistant Professor at the University of California San Diego, in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, and the Critical Gender Studies Program.

Bio: An engineer turned ethnographer, Deepti draws on her interdisciplinary training to analyze clean energy access and exposures to air pollution in historically marginalized communities in India and the United States. Deepti has several ongoing projects in collaboration with communities directly affected by tenuous energy access and climate change impacts. In India, her work has focused on analyzing clean cooking energy access in rural low-income communities; in the US, her work has focused on the entangled issues of wildfires, outdoor air pollution, and the connection to the electrical grid.

Deepti received her PhD and MPhil in Environmental Studies from Yale University with a certificate in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, an MS in Environmental Engineering and Science from Stanford University, and a BE in Civil Engineering from Osmania University. Prior to her current work in academia, Deepti worked for several years in public policy research in India and as an engineer in California, helping cities and counties plan for and design public infrastructure.

Abstract: Gender empowerment is often one of the stated goals of sustainable development projects, but what “empowerment” actually is on the ground, how it is experienced subjectively, and the nature of its relationship to “development” is less understood. In sustainability research, an analysis of empowerment is often reduced to measurable indicators like purchasing power, wage work, and time savings.  Based on long term ethnographic research in India, I analyze women’s subjective experiences of empowerment and the ways in which they are related to development projects to expand clean cooking energy access in rural India. My analysis includes juxtaposing household energy decisions with agrarian decisions and their concomitant labor needs. I argue that the empowerment potential in energy programs lies not necessarily in the grand imaginaries articulated by external development actors, but in the myriad ways in which they are heterogeneously embraced by the targets of sustainable development to meet specific local needs. 

Enhancing resilience of Lake Victoria’s fisheries: Strengthening women’s fisheries organizations for sustainable food systems.

Elizabeth (Beth) Nyboer, Assistant Professor, Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation, Virginia Tech.

Bio: As a freshwater ecologist and conservation scientist, Beth studies how anthropogenic stressors affect freshwater ecosystems and the fish, fisheries, and fishing communities they support.  Beth uses transdisciplinary approaches to integrate community perspectives alongside social, ecological, and environmental data to understand the vulnerability of these systems to environmental change and to find equitable solutions to social-ecological challenges. In her research, Beth explores themes of equity, food and nutrition security, and climate change adaptation, with a specific focus on challenges faced by women and other marginalized groups in inland fishery systems.

Abstract: The inland fisheries of Lake Victoria in East Africa are dynamic with multiple interacting forces shaping access to sustainable aquatic foods. Women in the fisheries sector face diverse adaptation challenges; yet, lack of sex-disaggregated research has hindered the development of equitable adaptive strategies. In Lake Victoria, over half a million women rely on fisheries for their livelihoods and play an integral role in the post-harvest handling, processing, and trade of fish and fish products. Women also contribute critically to household- and community-level food and nutrition security through their responsibilities in procuring and preparing household meals. Nevertheless, women are marginalized in decision making processes at community and household levels and lack access to key determinants of adaptive capacity. This talk will explore barriers and solutions to climate change adaptation for women in fisheries in Lake Victoria and explore promising avenues toward full autonomy and agency.