The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and Montenegro signed a financial agreement today to launch a project to transform the lives of over 16,000 smallholder farmers.

In north-eastern Montenegro, an IFAD-funded project is helping women start their own businesses and gain greater representation in their communities. Recently, many of these women gathered to share their successes and teach and learn from each other.

For all its rugged, mountainous beauty, Montenegro can be a very hard place to live – especially for women.

It’s six o’clock in Mojkova, in Montenegro and a long working day starts for Sladan Minic. It is an early wintry morning, and Sladan starts to collect milk from the local dairy farmers driving around mountainous roads.