The forum was conceived as a space for professional exchange, practical dialogue, and the formation of new partnerships in support of women-led agribusinesses and Ukraine's broader recovery.
The circumstances under which the forum proceeded illustrated, in the clearest possible terms, what adaptive management means in practice. One hour before the scheduled start, an air raid alert was issued and subsequently escalated into the largest-scale aerial attack since the beginning of the full-scale war, with 1,428 drones and 56 missiles deployed over a twenty-four-hour period, and Kyiv among the most affected areas. Anticipating risk, the organisers had planned in advance to hold the event in a conference room located within a shelter. As a result, the forum went ahead safely and gathered more than seventy participants who reached the venue despite the conditions. That a professional gathering of this scale could be held under direct threat speaks to the resilience that defines Swisscontact's work in Ukraine.
A focus on women's entrepreneurship and local recovery
Discussion centred on the role of women's entrepreneurship in strengthening local economies, sustaining recovery, and opening new opportunities for communities. Participants examined the challenges women in agribusiness continue to face, including access to finance and support instruments, the development of craft production and cooperation models, and the partnerships between public institutions, business, civil society, and international development organisations that make progress possible. A central session presented the results of Empower AgriWomen in Chernihiv region and set out the case for expanding activities to Kyiv region in 2026. This planned scale-up builds on two years of experience in Chernihiv and responds directly to the conditions confronting the region: recurrent missile and drone attacks, prolonged power outages, and persistent logistical obstacles. In such an environment, adaptive management is not an operational convenience but an essential tool for maintaining continuity and enabling development work to continue amid sustained uncertainty.
Systemic impact through a market systems approach
A recurring message of the forum was the value of delivering development results through a market systems development approach. This allows Swisscontact to support not only individual entrepreneurs but the wider ecosystem around them, including regional and local stakeholders, service providers, business associations, public institutions, and cooperation platforms. Support designed in this way is more inclusive, more efficient, and more sustainable, and it contributes to systemic impact that endures beyond the lifetime of any single intervention.
The programme also marked the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between Swisscontact and the Kyiv Regional State Administration, formalising a shared commitment to women's entrepreneurship in agriculture and to the conditions required to scale effective cooperation models into a new region.
As Niklaus Waldvogel, Head of Programmes of Swisscontact Ukraine, observed:
Through Empower AgriWomen, Swisscontact promotes Swiss values and approaches in Ukraine - adaptive management, market systems development, partnership-based cooperation, and long-term capacity building. In doing so, the project extends the Swiss footprint in the country while equipping women entrepreneurs, regional and local stakeholders, and the institutions around them with solutions that can be adapted and scaled as conditions change. Sustained investment in women-led agribusiness, the forum made clear, is an investment in Ukraine's recovery itself.
This project is part of the Swisscontact Development Programme, which is co-financed by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Federal Department of Foreign Affairs FDFA. The project is also supported by additional funding partners, including Katholisch Stadt Zürich.
