Women’s World Banking, Ripple and Pula Partner to Accelerate Livelihood Resilience Support for Women Farmers in Uganda

Kampala, Uganda, 31 Aug 2026: Women’s World Banking, a global nonprofit advancing women’s economic opportunity, is launching a new pilot with Ripple, which builds technology that makes international payments and money transfers faster, easier, and more efficient, and Pula, an insurance technology company serving smallholder farmers. Together, the organizations will test a new model for delivering faster, more transparent financial support to approximately 3,000 smallholder farmers in Uganda’s refugee and host communities, with a focus on women.

Uganda’s agriculture sector is highly vulnerable to climate change, relying largely on rain-fed production led by smallholder farmers with limited capacity to adapt. Women farmers in Uganda’s refugee and host communities manage constant risks from climate shocks, health, and income disruption, without reliable financial tools to recover. Women, refugees, and host communities dependent on subsistence farming, face the greatest exposure to these risks.

Climate shocks are intensifying. Uganda is experiencing more frequent droughts, floods, and climate-related displacement. Between 2018 and 2020 alone, climate disasters displaced an estimated 334,000 people, while droughts and crop failures continue to grow more severe and unpredictable. Women’s World Banking research shows that more than 800 million women globally lack access to the financial tools needed to receive relief payments during emergencies; in Sub-Saharan Africa, an estimated 300 million women lack a way to receive emergency relief payments after a climate disaster. For women who rely on small-scale, climate-sensitive agriculture, delayed support forces households to sell productive assets, reduce investment in their farms, and take on debt that undermines long-term stability.

This unique pilot project, Harnessing Technology for Women’s Financial Resilience in Uganda, brings together Women’s World Banking’s expertise in designing inclusive financial solutions and measuring their impact on women’s financial resilience, Pula’s parametric insurance design, and Ripple’s digital asset payment technology. When a predefined shock occurs, such as drought, crop loss, or a health emergency, payouts are triggered, and beneficiaries automatically receive funds in Uganda shillings through mobile money — the channel they already use and trust — without needing to file claims or wait for manual approval processes. Ripple USD (RLUSD) powers the backend settlement layer, using Ripple’s digital asset payment technology designed to make money transfers easier and more efficient. The settlement process operates seamlessly in the background, enabling deposits and withdrawals to continue normally in local currency. Smallholder farmers experience a faster, more transparent, and more efficient service without needing to engage with or understand the underlying settlement infrastructure.

“In Uganda, women farmers are already managing thin margins. A single shock, such as a failed harvest or a health emergency, can erase years of progress,” said Stephen Ambore, Policy Director- Africa, Women’s World Banking. “Financial resilience powers economic opportunity. When payouts arrive automatically in hours instead of weeks, women can absorb shocks without selling assets or taking on debt, allowing them to stay invested in their farms, businesses, and families and continue building long-term financial resilience and security. Women’s World Banking is committed to helping women earn more, improve their financial lives, and build resilience to climate and health shocks so they can achieve lasting economic opportunity.”

“As we continue exploring how RLUSD can support new real-world use cases behind the scenes, we’re excited to partner with Women’s World Banking and Pula, leaders in expanding economic empowerment through financial inclusion,” said Jonathan Perri, Director of Social Impact at Ripple. “This pilot demonstrates how programmable settlement technology can help automate insurance payouts for farmers in Uganda when predefined conditions are met, improving speed and efficiency — while beneficiaries interact only with the mobile money they already know.”

Women’s World Banking is partnering with insurance technology firm Pula to design and deliver the insurance product, working in coordination with humanitarian actors on the ground. The approach combines parametric insurance design with automated, technology-enabled settlement to reduce delays, increase transparency, and lower the cost of delivering payouts. In addition to product design and delivery, the initiative will test whether this model improves women’s financial resilience in measurable ways. Using the Women Economic Empowerment (WEE) Barometer by Women’s World Banking, the pilot will track changes in the women’s ability to manage shocks, their confidence in financial decision-making, and their control over household resources.

 The project has three objectives:

• Deliver predictable, shock-responsive support—covering agricultural, health, and life risks—to women farmers who currently lack access to insurance.
• Demonstrate that automated, technology-enabled settlement reduces payout times and secures payments in humanitarian and financial service delivery.
• Generate evidence and learnings to move from pilot to scale across humanitarian and financial systems.

About Women’s World Banking: Women’s World Banking is a global nonprofit advancing women’s economic opportunity by working with financial institutions and policymakers to design and scale inclusive financial solutions. For over 45 years, the organization has helped make finance work for women, reaching 118 million women and 76 million men since 2018.

About Pula: Pula is an insurance technology and data services company that designs and delivers agricultural insurance and digital financial products for smallholder farmers across Africa and Asia, helping them manage climate and production risks. Since its founding in 2015, Pula has reached more than 24 million smallholder farmers, including over 300,000 farmers in Uganda alone. 

About Ripple: Founded in 2012, Ripple is the leading provider of blockchain-based enterprise solutions across traditional and digital finance. Its solutions span global payments, custody, liquidity, and treasury management, serving as a one-stop shop for moving, storing, exchanging, and managing value. Ripple’s stablecoin, RLUSD, and its digital asset payment technology enable Ripple and its customers to deliver faster and more efficient financial services and contribute to a more modern financial system.

In this pilot, Ripple’s technology operates solely as backend settlement infrastructure between institutional partners and is not offered, sold, or made available to beneficiaries.

For Media Queries: 

Ian Burge press@ripple.com

Mabel Omurambi mo@womensworldbanking.org