Nahla Zayed Recognition Highlights a Market-Driven Model Linking Women’s Formal Employment, Equal Pay and Climate-Resilient Agriculture
Cairo, October 2026: RAMSCO Egypt for Building & Construction of Eco-villages has been featured in the Compendium on Women’s Financial Inclusion, published by the BRICS Women’s Business Alliance (BRICS WBA) in 2026, through its Inclusive Economy Working Group, with Women’s World Banking as its knowledge partner. Among 11 case studies from seven countries, RAMSCO is the only Egyptian company featured.
The compendium highlights models that advance women’s financial inclusion across five themes, including women’s collectives, enterprise finance, gender data and financial literacy. RAMSCO is featured under “Ecosystem Approaches for Inclusive and Resilient Finance,” alongside case studies from Indonesia and South Africa.
RAMSCO’s inclusion highlights a model built entirely on self-funded, family-held capital, without donors or institutional financing. The compendium identifies this as a particularly relevant example for market-driven agribusinesses seeking to formalize women’s employment without relying on external subsidy.
Today, RAMSCO employs between 50 and 60 workers, approximately 90% of whom are women. The company cultivates around 28 varieties of organic vegetables, producing 8.5 to 10 tons monthly, primarily for major supermarket retailers, while approximately 20% of its output is donated to charitable organizations.
RAMSCO’s model also addresses wider challenges facing women in Egypt’s labor market. Figures cited in the compendium show that nearly 62% of economically active women in Egypt work informally, while women’s median private-sector wages stand at roughly 77% of men’s. The company’s approach incorporates formal employment, equal pay and social protection into its business model, while its water-efficient cultivation and biochar technology support farming in desert and arid environments.
These practices link climate resilience with income stability, as more reliable agricultural production can support more consistent livelihoods for the women employed by the company.
The recognition follows RAMSCO’s inclusion in the 2025 BRICS Businesswomen Alliance report, which highlighted its women empowerment initiative as an Egyptian private-sector best practice.
On the significance of the recognition, Rawya Mansour, Founder and CEO of RAMSCO, stated:
“When we started, women in the agricultural communities around us were often paid half of what men earned. We decided that equal pay would be part of how RAMSCO works from the first day. Seeing our model included in this compendium confirms that fair employment and commercial farming can go hand in hand, and that protecting the land is also a way of protecting women’s income.”
Mansour added that expanding women’s role in agriculture and food security requires greater access to finance, the allocation of agricultural land to women, and targeted skills training for women and girls in rural communities.
This recognition places RAMSCO’s experience within a growing global focus on practical approaches to women’s economic participation, while highlighting the role that agriculture can play in creating more inclusive and resilient rural livelihoods.
