The difference between a seat at the table and a say in the outcome
Mercy Kebia's story follows what this looks like over time—from silent observer in 1997 to entrepreneur and community leader today.
Today, Mercy Kebia runs a thriving honey enterprise with five full-time staff, 17 seasonal workers, and five women-managed aggregation centres in West Pokot County in Kenya. She has trained women across her community, who now attend and actively shape community discussions.
Mercy attributes her success to the confidence she’s built up over the years. This was opened up by her increasing involvement and meaningful participation in community dialogues and post-recovery efforts. Her journey, from silent observer to established entrepreneur, depicts the difference between being included and being empowered.
When it comes to gender equality, global change is happening, but progress is slow. The world is currently not on track to achieve SDG5, the empowerment of all women and girls, by 2030. Closing the gap demands deliberate, sustained effort at every level. The path towards inclusive empowerment rests on three interconnected pillars: access, agency, and voice. Mercy's story traces all three.
Access: Opening the door to equal participation
In 1997, the West Pokot County faced a wide wave of violence in the run-up to the general elections. The violence of 1997 displaced thousands of families, heightening insecurity in a region historically marred by cattle rustling and inter-communal tensions.
Community meetings were held in an attempt to resolve the politically driven conflict and disputes over land and cattle. During that period, Mercy, just like other women in her community, listened more than they spoke. Although women were deeply affected by the conflict, their voices were excluded from these reconciliation circles.
Mercy still remembers the first time she sat in a community meeting.
Women were not expected to participate, let alone speak in such spaces. We were never meant to or rarely allowed to speak about or engage in any decisions that were made. We were expected to endure losses and violence quietly while men negotiated the future. We carried the burden of crisis, yet had little influence or voice in shaping recovery.
This began to change when she was asked to document community meetings. This was a modest yet meaningful act of access, a recognition that her seat at the table had value.
For the first time, my participation carried some weight. I could always listen and later present and share what was happening.
Women have historically been in the margins of formal decision-making spaces and economic life—their voices not always welcome, their potential untapped, their labour undervalued. Access is the first, essential step towards empowerment: opening the door to the resources and opportunities that make participation possible. However, access is only the beginning.
Agency: The confidence and skills to speak up
After the conflict ended, Mercy was trained as a social worker, deepening her skills in leadership and community engagement. That training did more than build practical skills— it built agency, the confidence and knowledge to make decisions and shape her own future. Agency is about what people do once the door is open, and whether they have the inner capacity to walk through it. In the context of empowerment of women, agency marks the transition from observers to active participants in decision- making within the household and beyond.
When she spotted an opportunity in the beekeeping practices of her region, Mercy leveraged the skills she acquired through the training and began building a business.
Today, Mercy manages five aggregation centres run by women and has successfully transitioned local beekeepers from traditional to commercial practices, aggregating up to 5,000 kilograms of refined honey per season, with the potential to reach 100,000 kilograms with additional capital.
Voice: The power to influence decisions
For Mercy, the journey did not stop at her front door. As her business grew, so did her sense of responsibility. She began sharing what she had learned, training women in her community in the skills that had changed her own trajectory.
Those women became organised aggregators in her supply network, negotiating on pricing, quality standards, and enterprise management. What began as one person’s economic participation quickly trickled into the community space, as women began attending the community meetings and using their voices to shape decisions.
They speak. They ask questions. They challenge assumptions. Today in my community, gatherings are rarely held without women at the table, making their voices heard
This is what voice looks like in practice: not just speaking but being heard. Genuine influence over the decisions that matter on the community level about livelihoods and the future. Meaningful participation in the networks and institutions that determine who gets a say and who does not.
Creating an enabling environment for women-led businesses
That is not to say the journey ends here for Mercy and the many women in her community. During peak harvest seasons, Mercy's business lacks sufficient working capital to offtake large volumes of honey. Export ambitions have been constrained by regulatory requirements, certification costs, and market volatility. On a broader scale, women entrepreneurs face gender-specific obstacles relating to access to finance, disproportionate burden of unpaid care work, and gender norms which are often ingrained in policy.
These challenges highlight the importance of inclusive finance, responsive policy frameworks, and supportive institutional partnerships that build the resilience of female-led small-holding businesses like Mercy’s. There is a need to institutionalise gender-fair approaches across entire value chains. This is not about applying a single, uniform solution. Women-led businesses face differentiated realities shaped by geography, culture, and sector. Building resilience for all means designing systems that are responsive to those differences.
Early signs of systemic change are visible. As women's voices in the community become more recognised, social norms around women's participation are shifting. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Mercy's business suffered significant losses and temporarily closed, but it reopened. She did not retreat from the market. Neither did the other women in her network.
Mercy's story, from 1997 to the present day, shows how resilience is built over time and transcends the individual to impact the whole community. What started with a seat at the table grew, step by step, into a business, a network, and a transformed community. Access opened the door. Agency provided the tools to walk through it. Voice ensured that others could follow.
Inclusive development leaves no one behind
SNV has positioned Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) as a global priority, aiming to integrate gender equality and social inclusion across all levels of our work by 2030