agricultural sectors. However, their roles are invisible in developing countries particularly Ethiopia. Empowering
women through property rights also had an overall effect on poverty reduction and malnutrition, illustrating the
link between the achievement of MDG 1 and women’s access to assets. However, despite these recent initiatives,
a mixture of economic constraints, cultural norms and practices continue to limit women’s contribution to
household food security and, to a lesser extent, inhibit the commercialization of the sector. Gender inequality is
one of the features of Ethiopian society. In almost all aspects of life, women are at a disadvantage. Particularly,
in rural areas, cultural, economic and physiological factors place huge barriers across sexes. This review paper
was aiming to identify the role of gender and opportunities and challenge of women agricultural value chain in
Ethiopia. Now a day, Ethiopian policy created the opportunities for the women by increasing women’s access to
and control over assets, increasing women’s access to skills and knowledge, strengthening women’s decisionmaking
role and increasing women’s participation in market-oriented agricultural Production. Contrarily,
different challenges were encountered with women in agricultural value chain in Ethiopia. These are limited
impact orientation and weak implementation linkages; limited vision of women’s potential exacerbated by
cultural barriers, religious influences and a male-dominated society; limited numbers of women and women in
leadership positions at community level; limited access by women to formal information and knowledge, and
their lack of resources.
Keywords: Value chain, Gender, Empowering, MDGs and Policy issues