Rural women are key agents for development. They play a critical role toward the achievement and the transformational economic, environmental, and social changes required for sustainable development. But limited access to credit, food security, and education are among the many challenges they face. These are further aggravated by the global food and economic crises and climate change. Empowering them is essential, not only for the well-being of individuals, families, and rural communities but also for overall economic productivity, given women’s large presence in the small business workforce in Liberia.

Learning Squared supports the leadership and participation of rural women through the rural women’s structure in helping with issues that affect their lives, including improved better rural livelihoods, supporting children's education in rural Liberia. Training and equipping them with skills to pursue new livelihoods and increase their income generation.

Women play a key role in supporting every form and a large proportion of the small business workforce in Liberia. In Liberia, they comprise 54% of the labor force in both the formal and informal sectors. In small business and trading activities, they constitute more than 80 percent of trading activities in the rural areas and are heavily engaged in the artisanal fishing and mining industries. In addition to fulfilling daily household chores. Yet Liberian women remain among the most disadvantaged. They are disproportionately clustered in the least productive sectors, with 90 percent employed in the informal sector or agriculture. Their predominance in the informal economy translates into low productivity, meager earnings, and exposure to exploitation.

Illiteracy rates among women aged 15-49 are particularly high (60 percent) compared to men (30 percent). 42 percent of Liberian women and 18 percent of men have never attended school. In rural areas, literacy rates are staggeringly low at 26 percent, while the gender gap in secondary school attendance is very high, with a net attendance ratio of 6 percent for females. While 19 percent of men have completed secondary school or higher, only 8 percent of women have accomplished the same.

In Liberia, 40 percent of the population is highly vulnerable to food insecurity, and women, who lack means of sustainable livelihoods, employment skills and suffer from higher rates of malnutrition, are particularly susceptible.
Given equal resources, rural women could contribute much more to all sectors of Liberia, especially education. Many of Liberia’s most poor are rural women. Poverty eradication is a key challenge for women in rural parts of Liberia.

Learning Squared Social Microfinance Program has created a platform for rural women, especially for women whose children are benefiting from our rural scholarship program, to articulate their concerns, evaluate their accomplishments, and devise strategies to tackle challenges they may encounter. The structure has provided an opportunity for rural women to increase their income-generating activities to support their children's education am improve their livelihoods and secure a better future. Since 2019, Learning has empowered over 100 rural women using our social business model to support education and reduce poverty.