IITA carries out agricultural research for development with a diverse group of international and national partners in around 30 countries across five hubs in Sahel, Western, Central, Eastern, and Southern Africa. IITAās Social Science and Agribusiness Unit comprises over 20 social scientists. IITA is actively involved in gender research with partners across the continent and beyond. A snapshot of the gender research carried out by IITA and partners over the past decade reflects the breadth and depth of the organizationās ability to attract financial resources and expertise to develop and implement high-quality gender research under its multiple thematic areas of foci.
IITA is exemplar in its integrative gender research within breeding with partners under theĀ Gender and Breeding InitiativeĀ (Teeken et al., 2018;Ā Teeken et al., 2021) piloting theĀ G+ tools for gender-responsive breeding (Polar et al., 2022) and in integrating gender and other social dimensions into technical breeding and food science (Agbona et al., 2023; Alamu et al., 2023) including gender dimensions of trait preferences related to climate change and related social stressors (Olaosebikan et al., 2023) and with a specific focus on participatory research with women processors (Teeken et al., 2021; Bouniol et al., 2023; Bello et al., 2023). With regards to participatory variety selection and variety release procedures, IITA is piloting the scalable citizen scienceĀ Tricot approach in root crops, adding social inclusion and gender perspectives (Olaosebikan et al., 2023; van Etten et al., 2023; de Sousa et al., 2024).
Read more
IITA has also designed and carried out sex-disaggregated adoption and impact studies (e.g.,Ā Ainembabazi et al., 2018;Ā Wossen et al., 2018;Ā Bentley et al. 2016;Ā Wossen et al. 2017;Ā Dontsop et al., 2020) and a number of youth-focused studies (Yami et al., 2019;Ā Ngāatigwa et al., 2020;Ā Ogunmodede et al., 2020; Yeboah et al., 2020; Crossouard et al., 2021; Olaosebikan et al., 2021).
IITA has recently helped develop and/or pilot several tools to better understand intra-household decision making (Petesch and Bullock, 2018; Farnworth et al., 2022; Cole et al., 2021;Ā Mwakanyamale et al., 2023), to integrate gender transformative approaches in social protection (Cole et al., 2023) and engage men in maize systems (Farnworth et al., 2020), to measure gender transformative change (FAO, IFAD, WFP & CGIAR GENDER Impact Platform, 2023), and for contextualizing womenās and menās trait preferences (Cavicchioli et al., 2023). IITA gender researchers have also assisted in the development of different training manuals to strengthen capacities within the agricultural research for development ecosystem (Fischer et al., 2019;Ā Fischer, 2019;Ā Teeken et al., 2023).
IITA has an activeĀ Gender Science Network, comprising gender researchers, economists, and biophysical scientists who are interested in creating an innovative and diverse network of scientists to strengthen the quality and visibility of gender research at IITA through dialogue, cooperation, and influencing the delivery agenda of the institute.
IITA gender researchers make significant contributions to theĀ CGIAR GENDER Impact Platform, including representing IITA as aĀ Gender Research CoordinatorĀ on the Platform and as a member of the Platformās Management Committee.
The current gender researchers at IITA are involved in severalĀ One CGIAR Initiatives, for example, theĀ Gender Equality,Ā Market Intelligence, Accelerated Breeding, Mixed Farming Systems,Ā Excellence in Agronomy, andĀ Aquatic Foods Initiatives and on a wide range of bilateral projects that IITA leads or partners on to help deliver gender-responsive and -transformative research for development outcomes.
GENDER Research Team
IITA Gender Research Webinar Series
Gender research Learnings and Exchanges for New inSights (G-LENS)
The IITA Gender Science Network (GSN) has set up a science-based research webinar series in line with its goal of promoting gender advocacy and enhancing gender research, its communication and impact.
The webinars will serve as a learning and engaging platform for participants to dialogue, better understand, adapt and implement new and existing gender initiatives, methodologies, tools and approaches in various projects and larger research programs.
Starting from March 2022
For more information, kindly contact:
Steven Cole – S.Cole@cgiar.org
Publications on GENDER
Stories on GENDER
CGIAR’s Gender, Diversity and inclusion Knowledge Hub
The GDI Knowledge Hub is your single entry point to a wide range of GDI resources, including training, toolkits, best practice guidance notes, policies and practices.
