IITA Gender Network to create more visibility for gender research in 2022

The IITA Gender Science Network (GSN) held its last quarterly meeting for the year on 8 December. The Network, which comprises social and biophysical scientists, communications staff, and project managers, meets quarterly to monitor its activities, measure progress, identify challenges, and discuss the way forward. The meeting featured highlights of the gender research activities that the Network members did in the third and fourth quarters. Discussions also focused on the new activities proposed during the second quarterly meeting and progress made.

Steven Cole, IITA Senior Scientist and Gender Specialist, and the Coordinator of GSN, welcomed old and new members of the Network from across units and projects. He also recapped the quarter two meeting, where he emphasized the impressive gender-focused research efforts by colleagues around the different IITA research stations. He also highlighted the initial brainstorming efforts by Network members during the meeting on how to implement a gender research webinar series at IITA.

Following the recap, several Network members shared their gender-focused work at IITA. Titilayo Falade (IITA, Nigeria) spoke about her work on food safety issues in northern Nigeria and the focus on creating awareness for women in this aspect. Regina Kapinga (IITA, Tanzania) talked about the upcoming work of BASICS II, which aims to target 50% of women as cassava seed entrepreneurs (CSEs) in Nigeria and Tanzania. Olamide Olaosebikan (IITA, Nigeria) mentioned the new GREAT (Gender-responsive Researchers Equipped for Agricultural Transformation) funded project in Nigeria that will identify resilience traits in cassava breeding. Béla Teeken (IITA, Nigeria) and Pheneas Ntawuruhunga (IITA, Malawi) discussed collaborating to develop a workshop in 2022 that will kick-start the process of helping other breeding efforts outside Nigeria to integrate gender into their work through the development/sharing of tools, manuals, and guidelines.

For webinars and round table discussions in 2022 that will promote knowledge on gender research and its importance, Network members volunteered to participate and showcase their gender-focused research at IITA. Still, on opportunities to promote the Network, Favour Eleta, from the Communication Office, explained that IITA has a YouTube channel that could be a good option if presenters agree to make live videos of their presentations for viewing within and outside IITA.

Giving an update on the CGIAR GENDER Platform, the One CGIAR 'Gender' Initiative, and gender integration in One CGIAR Initiative proposals submitted in 2021, Cole highlighted the progress made. He spoke about IITA's participation at the recent Equality Conference of the GENDER Platform, where Devis Mwakanyamale (IITA, Tanzania) received the "best poster" award for his poster pitch on gender barriers in the cassava seed system in Tanzania. He also mentioned a grant that IITA recently received from the GENDER Platform for over US$100k to implement research on gender and climate change. Cole added that the HER+ Initiative proposal of the One CGIAR was submitted at the end of November and IITA is positioned to lead one Work Package on gender transformative approaches with a projected 2022 budget of around US$1.4m.

In conclusion, Cole mentioned the efforts by other One CGIAR Initiative Design Teams to integrate gender into their proposals and added that the result is something to build on in the future.

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