Workshop on women's leadership in agriculture and climate research
Background
Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) works to make climate information services and climate-smart agriculture more accessible to millions of smallholder farmers across Africa. With better access to technology and advisory services, linked to information about effective response measures, farmers can better anticipate climate-related events to take preventative action that helps their communities safeguard livelihoods and the environment. AICCRA is supported by a grant from the International Development Association (IDA) of the World Bank, which is used to enhance research and capacity-building activities of CGIAR centers and initiatives, as well as their African partners.
AICCRA had identified two critical gender gaps relevant to the four pillars of the SBG Gender Strategy. One of the gaps is the underrepresentation of women in agricultural research and their low advancement rate in comparison to men researchers in the African continent. AICCRA’s case study on promoting women’s entry and advancement in agriculture and climate research, will assess strategies to support women’s positive career experience and progression in AICCRA.
The West and Central Africa Council for Agricultural Research and Development (CORAF), works to contribute to a sustainable reduction of poverty and food insecurity in West and Central Africa. To achieve this goal, CORAF is working to increase economic growth, generated by agriculture, and to improve the agricultural research system of the sub-region. The Strategic Plan 2018-2027 focuses on 4 Priority Intervention Domains: (i) 1. Agriculture, food, and nutrition security, (ii) Policy, institutions, markets, and trade, (iii)Gender, youth, and social equity; and (iv)Knowledge Management and Foresight.
CORAF recognizes that unlocking the potential of African agriculture lies with the empowerment of women and youth in Agricultural Research and Extension System and committed across various projects to invest in women and young researchers in agricultural science education, in scientific and leadership capacity building to lead advance and innovation in Agricultural Research and Extension System.
The Opportunity
Various studies have indicated that women are less represented in agricultural research and advance at lower rates than men. As in many other sectors, there is a leaky pipeline effect, where the proportion of women seems to decrease steadily along the progression to senior management and decision-making positions. There seems to be a continuing problem in recruitment, retention, and advancement in the research systems, and this relates to climate and agriculture research as well. According to various data and reports, women made up only 25% of agricultural scientists in Africa in the last decade, and a much lower proportion of decision makers on agriculture and climate change at institutional, national, and global levels. And this situation has not critically improved in recent years.
The potential of women scientists to contribute to the debate on and solutions for climate change while also influencing policy is under-utilised. According to Huyer (2015), the participation of women in agricultural sciences is progressively increasing in most regions of the world. However, women remain the minority in many international and national organizations devoted to agricultural research, including in the CGIAR Centers, regional and national research institutes, and universities. Additionally, the representation of women decreases as one moves up the scientific ladder, to decision making and senior management levels where their representation tends to be around 10-20%.
Transformative leadership development therefore is paramount especially for organizations not only to attract women leaders and researchers but also to retain them and reduce the leaky pipeline.
Objective
The objective of this workshop is to build knowledge and skills for advancement in agricultural R&D in the context of climate adaptation and mitigation, and to develop skills for leadership in agriculture and climate research.
Specific objectives:
- To develop women’s leadership in agriculture and climate research, to promote their access to decision making positions in regional, and national research, extension, and advisory organizations to inclusive climate smart agriculture.
- To promote women’s entry and advancement in agriculture and climate research, with strategies to support women’s positive career experience and progression in AICCRA implementing countries.
- To facilitate knowledge exchange and sharing on women’s experience and challenges as scientists in agriculture and climate science, and the needed actions to support them in the workplace.
About this workshop
The invitation-only training workshop will be carried out in-person and will be provided and facilitated by a team of scientific and leadership capacity development. The course will be learner-oriented and participatory. Participants’ experiences of scientific, agricultural innovation, and leadership in their own context will be an important element of the training. Sharing of knowledge and insights across countries will be encouraged.
Participants
The training targets female researchers which have been invited to join based on nominations from AICCRA-implementing countries.
For further information on the work that AICCRA is doing to promote gender inclusion in climate-smart agriculture, contact Sophia Huyer, AICCRA's Gender and Social Inclusion Lead.