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Minutes of the Teleconference on the Gender in Agriculture Partnership (GAP)

23 January 2013, 14.00 – 19.00 hours

Participants1

Ann Dela Apekey, FARA (teleconference) Ruth Meinzen-Dick, IFPRI

Magdalena Blum, FAO/OEKR and GFRAS rep. Harry Palmier, GFAR Lynn Brown, WFP Thomas Price, GFAR Marina Cherbonnier, GFAR/YPARD Libor Stloukal, FAO/ESW Jennie Dey de Pryck, GFAR consultant Vicki Wilde, AWARD (teleconference)2

Mark Holderness, GFAR (Chair)

1. The Purpose of the Meeting was to:

(a) update participants (and other GAP members/potential members through the minutes) on progress in GAP activities since the last teleconference on 23 July 2012;

(b) provide an opportunity for all participants to share recent information on their gender programmes with a particular focus on highlighting opportunities for developing partnerships within GAP;

(c) discuss and agree on priority areas for GAP action in 2013 including responses to specific requests for GAP assistance; and

(d) discuss and agree on practical working mechanisms for GAP.

2. Highlights of Progress on GAP actions catalyzed through the GFAR since July 2012 included:

(a) The GFAR-organized Second Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD2, Punta del Este, Uruguay, 29 October – 1 November 2012) represented a sea change in recognition of gender equity among AR4D institutions from that in GCARD1 in 2010, largely due to the progress in developing GAP since 2010 and the Global Conference on Women in Agriculture (GCWA, New Delhi, March 2012). GCARD2 included (i) a High level Plenary Policy Forum on Agricultural Innovation for Rural Women on the first morning of the Conference, (ii)

1 Krishna Srinath, Director, DRWA, Bhubaneswar, India, and Elizabeth Waithanji, ILRI, also tried to join the teleconference but phone links failed to connect. Krishna and Mohammed Ajlouni, Executive Secretary, AARINENA, Jacqui Ashby, CGIAR Gender Unit, and Alisher Tashmatov, Executive Secretary, CACAARI, sent inputs by email which are summarized in these minutes. A skype discussion between Mahmoud Solh, DG, ICARDA, and GFAR was held on 28 January to explore opportunities for ICARDA to link with other GAP partners, in particular in regard to the CRP on dryland systems and implementing actions responding to findings of the AARINENA regional study on women’s empowerment for improved AR4D (see section 2(d) and Annex 5).

2 See Annex 1 for Acronyms.

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thematic sessions on collective actions in empowerment of women and youth (which included a presentation on GAP); nutrition; and capacity development (which all addressed gender), and (iii) two pre-GCARD sessions on agriculture-gender-nutrition issues and the CGIAR CRP4 on Agriculture for Improved Nutrition and Health. These sessions, and the rich opportunities for networking and discussions on GAP among participants, strengthened the sense of shared concern and commitment to work together in GAP.

(b) A GAP e-survey was conducted by Nadia Manning-Thomas on behalf of GFAR, between October-November 2012, in order to expand to a wide range of stakeholders the inclusive consultative process to identify needs and priorities for GAP that was initiated at the GCWA and identify the relative priorities among these.3

Preliminary results (Annex 2) show there is a clear demand for GAP, and that the initial priorities suggested in the October 2012 version of the GAP Note are broadly endorsed:

(i) Over 96.7 percent of the 150+ respondents, representing over 100 different organizations throughout all regions, agreed on the importance of the five priority areas for GAP that were identified at GCWA and were elaborated in the revised GAP Note (Annex 3, pages 2-3).

(ii) 84.1, 80.5 and 70 percent of respondents, respectively, considered it “vital” that GAP fill the roles of (a) facilitating dialogue and debate among committed GAP professional and (b) bringing GAP partners together to plan and coordinate advocacy activities on women/gender in AR4D and (c) identifying gender-based needs in agriculture and developing policies, strategies, programmes and collective action plans to address these (see Annexes 2 and 3 for further roles/details).

(c) Discussion with the UN agencies in regard to gender research in the UN system (see Annex 4). Discussions in Geneva in 2012 have built linkages with gender specialists across the UN system. These can provide a very valuable network to address the gender equity issues recognized as essential to be addressed in the GCWA synthesis, but which go well beyond the agricultural sphere.

(d) Other GAP activities in 2012/3 include:

(i) GAP/GFAR financial/technical support for the GFAR/FAO study by consultant Anna Crole-Rees with FARA-SSA-CP and ESW/DIMITRA of rural women’s knowledge networks through community clubs and local language radio and gender-differentiated needs in Niger, the GFAR-supported FAO-IFPRI paper on engendering agricultural research, inputs through GAP partners to the development of the CGIAR equity and gender strategy and the 2012 AARINENA report on Women’s Empowerment for Improved Research in Agricultural Development, Innovation and

3 Initiated prior to GCARD2, the survey had elicited just over 60 responses (mainly from GCWA participants) but the extension of the deadline after GCARD2 enabled many GCARD2 participants to respond too, bringing the number of responses to over 150. This good response rate indicates the catalytic power of many of GCARD2’s gender-sensitive sessions.

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Knowledge Transfer in the West Asia/North Africa Region by E. Augustin with R. Assad and D. Jaziri.

(ii) Mobilization of a gender session at the Agricultural Research and Rural Development Day at Rio+20, which involved presentations from FAO, APAARI, CIAT and the Jordanian Women Farmers’ Association. This session succeeded in ensuring a series of direct mentions of gender and women farmers in the final RIO+20 Declaration, where previously there had been none, and redressed the scant attention to gender issues in the report of the International Commission on Sustainability and Climate Change that framed the meeting. Prof Sir John Beddington, UK Chief Scientist, described this as an important addition: http://ccafs.cgiar.org/blog/moving-ahead-actions-transforming-global-food-system. Specific advocacy from WFP also helped ensure gender received prominence in the Rio+20 and G-20 intergovernmental discussions.

(iii) GFAR and others provided financial and technical support for GFRAS’ core activities to strengthen advisory services, including on gender.

(iv) GFAR/GAP provided direct comments on FAO’s draft State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA) 2013, Food Systems for Food Security and Better Nutrition, with regard to gender-agriculture-nutrition.

(v) Active participation by GFAR and FAO/ESW in the UN Women/UNRISD workshop on gender research in the UN system (Geneva, Nov 2012), which identified strong interest in the GAP concept among a diverse range of partners, brought together through UN Women. These partners are well placed to address the more broad-based gender equity constraints in health, women’s rights and exploitation, land and labour rights issues etc. that will be highly necessary to consider and very complementary to the specifically agricultural focus of existing GAP partners.

(e) The GAP Note (Annex 3) was revised by GFAR Secretariat into a more sharply focused Note, which the Teleconference participants welcomed as providing a useful framework for guiding the meeting discussions and GAP’s future development. In particular, the GAP Mission and GAP Vision were strongly endorsed. The Note will be updated to reflect the teleconference decisions/outcomes.

(f) The participants welcomed the commitment by the Government of India (through the Ministry of Agriculture’s Dept. of Agricultural Research and Extension and the Indian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR)) to (i) reorient India’s agri-research agenda to include a greater emphasis on gender, with the Directorate of Research on Women in Agriculture (DRWA), Bhubaneswar, playing a key role, and (ii) invest in operating a hub of GAP in DRWA to leverage the increased commitment stated by the Government of India to catalyze GAP activities in South Asia and link with partners in other countries to benefit and help support gender equity actions in the region.

(g) FARA is developing a concept note for the organization of GCWA2 in 2015 and will share the draft with GFAR and GAP partners shortly. Several teleconference participants stated their readiness to contribute to GCWA2.

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(h) Some initial contacts have been made with potential donors.

3. Participants updated each other on their gender programmes with a particular focus on highlighting opportunities for developing partnerships within GAP that would add value to their individual/their institutions’ programmes, and flagging any areas where they felt the need for support/assistance. Since this information is useful for many GAP stakeholders, brief summaries are given in Annex 4. These updates included the following programmes:

• CGIAR

• Nutrition

o The Global Donor Platform for Rural Development (GDPRD), with special focus on the agriculture-nutrition work stream

o The International Conference on Nutrition +21 (13-15 November 2013)

• UN Women and the UN Agencies

o UN Women and UNRISD meeting on gender research in the UN system (November 2012)

o UN Women, FAO, IFAD, WFP Joint Programme: Accelerating Progress toward the Economic Empowerment of Rural Women.

• FARA and the Africa Agriculture Science Week, July 2013

• AWARD

• GFRAS Gender Working Group

• YPARD

4. Decisions on GAP Work Priorities and Collective Activities

The overriding aim is to show that GAP’s achievements and potential are both TANGIBLE and VISIBLE. In other words, what can be achieved through the action network of GAP that is bigger than any one partner can do alone? What are the efficiencies, synergies, value-addition of working through the open, collective partnership of the GAP movement? How can GAP partners leverage off each other’s work to generate more and invest resources and efforts together in areas with multiple dimensions?

It is important to note that some of the decisions on collective actions that are listed below (e.g. on the Africa Agricultural Science Week and the GFRAS Pretoria meeting) ONLY took place because the teleconference itself gave participants the opportunity to exchange information on these events and their related programmes. This underlines the need for active discussions among GAP members and not only to reply on more passive web-based communication.

(a) At the GAP work programme level, it was agreed to add the thematic area of ICTs, which can be empowering and transformative for women, and are particularly innovative and promising among youth. The GAP Note will be updated to reflect this.

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(b) At the regional level, it was agreed to explore possibilities of responding to requests for financial and technical assistance from GAP partners from:

AARINENA for preparing its regional gender strategy;

CACAARI for carrying out an e-survey on gender-related needs in AR4D in the region, as an initial step to developing a gender strategy. CACAARI is also planning a Regional conference on Women in Agricultural Innovation (20-22 May, 2014, Bukhara, Uzbekistan) for which GAP partners’ contributions would be much welcomed;

FORAGRO for reviewing gender equity needs in agriculture & agricultural services through a study by consultant Fidelina Diaz;

FARA for continuation of the gender disaggregated analyses and their implications in Niger and other SSA-CP benchmark sites; and

CGIAR: Mobilizing national gender-based considerations towards the objectives of the CGIAR Research Programmes (CRPs).

In this context, it was noted that the capacity of the national agricultural research for development systems collaborating with the CGIAR programmes is critical for the success of the CGIAR programmes as well as for the ability to meet national needs. There is an urgent need for much deeper and broader capacity in many national agricultural research, extension and education institutions in all sectors with regard to gender issues and other areas. It is also recognized that national gender issues are a social construct that relies on change within communities and families themselves.

At the country level, it was agreed to:

(i) Identify opportunities for GAP partners collaboration and mobilizing required actions in focus countries of the UN Women, FAO, IFAD, WFP Joint Programme: Accelerating Progress toward the Economic Empowerment of Rural Women. Actions to be coordinated via Libor Stloukal, FAO’s focal point for this programme.

The draft matrix of focal countries for different GAP partners, shared among the teleconference participants in Rome, will be updated (and cross-referenced with thematic areas), to help GAP partners identify other opportunities for collaboration, synergies, cross-fertilization in their focal countries.

(ii) Pursue the request received from Nepal for GAP assistance to help transform the national AR4D system to meet new gender-related needs triggered by the ongoing trend of feminization of agricultural labour and explore feasibility of linking this with GAP partners inputs e.g. above UN initiative, Indian commitment, CRPs, GFRAS, AWARD’s possible expansion to Asia. Mark Holderness will coordinate follow-up with Nepal.

(c) At a thematic level, it was agreed to:

(i) Collaborate in organizing, contributing gender-related technical inputs to key conferences and/or running side events at these conferences:

• Africa Agriculture Science Week (15-20 July, Accra, Ghana) which is organized by FARA with co-hosting by the Govt. of Ghana. AWARD, FARA, GFRAS and YPARD

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will organize a joint pre-event or side event with a focus on gender in the agricultural sciences.

• GFRAS meeting on Prioritization, Planning, and Partners for Implementation for Capacities Globally (14-15 March, Pretoria), which will discuss and take forward the regional outcomes of prior regional e-conferences for Africa, Asia and Latin America on the same topic. GFRAS, AWARD, FARA in the context of GFAR will explore possibilities of collaborating (in a joint GAP side event or in another manner) at this Pretoria meeting.

• The PanAAC/GFAR/FARA/AU conference to support the empowerment of women and youth farmer entrepreneurs, planned for Ethiopia in June 2013.

• Joint FAO/WHO International Conference on Nutrition +21 (ICN+21, 13-15 November 2013, Rome). Various GAP partners are interested in participating in a GAP contribution, whose possible scope will be discussed initially with the ICN+21 secretariat and GFAR/FAO.

(ii) Explore ways for GAP partners to develop synergies and value addition between their work and selected CGIAR CRPs: e.g. linking capabilities of other organizations to strengthen the gender focus and actions in the CRPs and in conceptualizing and implementing transformative approaches in agriculture through these large scale programmes; collaborating in country-level testing of the USAID, IFPRI, Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI); analyzing and promoting gender-agriculture-nutrition linkages at the policy and programme level; developing/selecting/disseminating tools to analyze gender issues in agricultural value chains; improving/disseminating better gender-sensitive data collection and analysis methods and tools (to provide gender-disaggregated quantitative estimates of employment (by status and age) in different nodes of agricultural sub-sectoral value chains and the costs of neglecting women); advocating for FAO’s and other international organizations’ statistical departments to strengthen their statistical systems to collect/analyze/disseminate such data in the public domain. Several GAP partners were interested in collaborating in these areas (e.g. AWARD, others?)

In many of these areas, there is a need not only for improved, user-friendly training materials but also for hands-on practical (face-to-face) training.

(iii) Explore the possibility of developing other thematic work, such as

• Innovative uses of ICTs, especially with young men and women (YPARD, AWARD, others)

• Nutrition, drudgery-reducing tools, loss and waste reduction methods/tools, labour rights and decent work conditions in agricultural value chains (FAO, UN Women, ILO, UNRISD, others)

• Entrepreneurial skills and opportunities for rural women, including new opportunities based on use of agricultural innovation and research products

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The matrix with focal countries will be updated and cross-referenced with thematic areas, as a tool to help GAP partners identify opportunities for collaboration, synergies, cross-fertilization on gender-related issues/women’s empowerment in agriculture goals among their programmes.

(iv) Prepare a progress report on GAP’s achievements so far (to be regularly updated), using innovative indicators for measuring progress. GFAR will follow up. This will be important for demonstrating tangible and visible

5. Decisions on GAP’s Advocacy Strategy and Activities

benefits of GAP, and mobilizing other partners and donors.

Participants agreed that there is a need to identify influential institutions (e.g. UN Agencies, CGIAR) platforms (e.g. the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development), fora (e.g. Regional Fora, GFRAS), networks,4

6. Decisions on GAP’s visibility and collective advocacy

movements (e.g. SUN), women farmers’ organizations, conferences (e.g. ICN+21, follow-up to Rio+20) and G8 and G20 meetings, through which GAP partners can collectively contribute on gender-agriculture-nutrition issues. In some cases, particular GAP members are also members of such influential bodies, and can mobilize other GAP partners to contribute. However, there is also need for a systematic approach through a Working Group made up of the GAP Catalysts (see below) with a “watching brief”, working across global, regional and country levels, to identify well in advance key conferences and organizational flagship programmes where gender/women in agriculture issues are highly relevant, and to mobilize partners across the sector to get these issues included in the discussions, outcome statements, and programmes. To be effective, this Working Group would also need to mobilize “allies” and “opinion leaders”, including eminent persons such as GAP’s Patrons (see below) and executive heads and senior staff of UN and CGIAR organizations, inter alia. For the establishment of the Working Group, see also section 7 below.

(a) To promote and provide a common platform for collective advocacy and knowledge sharing, it was agreed to establish, through GFAR as the common forum for all, a GAP website inclusive of all partners, with its own domain name: ‘gender-gap’ and with a GAP email address for the site manager. On the basis of this decision, immediate action was taken by GFAR to purchase the gender-gap domain names (.com, .org & .net) on behalf of the GAP partners. The website will be initially linked to the egfar gender page5

4 Possibilities could include groups such as the Civil Society Advisory Group to UN Women, WEDO (Women’s Environment and Development Organization) for advocacy or Soroptimist International to promote women’s professional status and roles.

and as more resources become available, a site manager will be engaged to build the collective website to clearly signpost and highlight actions among all partners and enable the information sharing (calendar of meetings, conferences,

5 As of the end of January 2013, the domain name gender-gap.net was active and “under construction” with a homepage with a link to the “Gender in Agriculture” section on EGFAR: http://www.gender-gap.net/

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training workshops/courses; working documents/publications; newsletters), programme development and blogging and advocacy roles among and on behalf of all GAP partners.

(b) GAP partners are encouraged to use the GAP logo (at the top of these minutes) on official correspondence/documents that are related to GAP issues and goals, as this would promote GAP’s visibility and advocacy roles as a collective partnership and common voice of committed parties.

7. Decisions on GAP Guidance and Working Mechanisms

(a) Working Mechanisms for GAP: Establishment of a Working Group of “GAP Catalysts”

(i) All participants emphasized the need for a group of committed individuals from across the spectrum of organizations already committed, to mobilize and operationalize GAP. Various proposals were discussed for mobilizing and supporting such drivers, and innovative opportunities will be explored, taking account of existing and future resources. This will include recruitment of a full time gender specialist to facilitate these processes in the GFAR Secretariat, to be mentored by Jennie Dey de Pryck who is presently providing these inputs on an expert consultant basis.

It was recognized also that as a collective movement it was important to maintain an inclusivity of all partners and not become heavily institutionalized. At the same time, there needed to be a process by which GAP implementation decisions could be reached and actions taken, including in the generation, allocation and sharing of available resources. For this, it was agreed that rather than a heavily formalized structure of gender focal points which, as clearly stated in the GCWA has seldom worked well in practice, it was better to work with an initial group of committed individuals, ‘GAP Catalysts’ who could speak for their institutions and sectors but more importantly could work effectively to inspire change and mobilize active involvement across the many institutions already involved and those to come.

(ii) It was agreed that it was most appropriate to develop a layered structure for actions at different levels, comprising:

• A global group of ‘GAP Catalysts’ to inspire change and foster collective actions among different institutions and sectors and from this a series of (time-bound) Working Groups (e.g. gender-agriculture-nutrition, capacity development-training, ICTs and youth, aligning CRPs with the UN Women & Rome-based Agencies programme). The global level GAP Actions would focus on:

(i) sharing knowledge and catalyzing discussions among GAP partners to develop joint programmes/activities that bring synergies and value-addition,

(ii) advocacy, especially at global and regional levels, and

(iii) mentoring women professional and leaders, especially the young.

This group and the working groups and regional hubs would be mutually interlinked as one network.

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• Regional hubs that would be linked vertically and horizontally within GAP and would catalyse and help support region-specific gender in agriculture actions. India has already volunteered to run and resource a hub to mobilize GAP-related activities in India and actions in support of gender equitable systems into wider South Asia. FARA has also indicated its readiness to set up a hub for Africa. GAP partners & GFAR will pursue discussions with other regional or national bodies that could operate hubs in other regions (including on a rotating basis). Such hubs may also wish to set up their own (time-bound) thematic working groups and knowledge platforms.

(iii) The selection of members/focal points of these groups will need further elaboration and is likely to evolve as new partners bring their own commitments.

Initial approaches were agreed as:

• The group of GAP Catalysts could (largely) comprise people in their personal capacity as in some organizations institutional membership of such a partnership may not lead to the most active or appropriate person being nominated to inspire others and take forward the Partnership. Participants agreed that a small group would be most effective and proposed further consideration of the following initial (and not comprehensive) categories of constituencies (ONE catalyst would have to be agreed by the concerned individuals/organizations in each constituency (S/he could act on a rotating or time-bound basis, and may have an alternate):

o UN Women

o FAO/IFAD/WFP- the Rome based UN Agencies

o CGIAR system (the Gender Specialist in CGIAR Consortium Gender Unit??)

o National agricultural research & development organizations via GFAR Regional Fora – can be several, depending on specific regional commitments

o Capacity development organizations (AWARD and

o Youth

GFRAS since they deal with different levels? Other?)

o Producer organizations

o NGOs

o Private sector networks

o Donors (e.g. the Global Donor Platform on Rural Development)

o World/Regional Development banks

o Other???

• The thematic Working Groups could also select “focal points” to undertake a mobilizing and liaison role, on a time-bound or rotating basis.

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• The Regional Hubs could determine their own preferred way of selecting members/focal points and methods of operation and accountability. It might be prudent to start in 2 or 3 regions (South Asia (India DRWA for APAARI), Africa (FARA), Middle East and North Africa (AARINENA) where there is vocal demand, some existing capacity and readiness to engage.

(iv) Procedures for considering whether the GAP network should take on a more formalized membership basis (i.e. beyond focal point or catalyst roles) will need further discussion once actions are moving forward. Initially it is likely that GAP will appeal as a network for collective action to many of the GCWA and GCARD2 participants, particularly those who responded to the e-survey, but it is expected that interest in a more formal structure will grow as GAP demonstrates its successes and the opportunities it provides to deliver on its mission and vision statements and if a financial role becomes required as is likely in programme generation. Members would also be able to join the global GAP and selective thematic Working Groups and/or Regional Hubs, as they wish, including offering their services for (time-bound) focal point and catalyst roles.

(b) Establishment of a Group of GAP Patrons

This group would consist of a small number of Eminent Persons who could provide GAP guidance, and serve as advocates for GAP. Participants drew up a list of potential patrons, and retained 5 (2 men and 3 women from different regions). It was agreed that Mark Holderness would first approach one of these, to ascertain this person’s interest and availability, and advice on the roles these patrons could play, before approaching the others.

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Annex 1: Acronyms

AARINENA Association of Agricultural Research Institutions in the Near East and North Africa APAARI Asia-Pacific Association of Agricultural Research Institutions AR4D Agricultural Research for Development AWARD African Women in Agricultural Research and Development BMGF Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation CAADP Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme CACAARI Central Asia & Caucasus Association of Agricultural Research Institutions CGIAR Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research CRPs CGIAR Research Programs CSO Civil Society Organization CTA Centre Technique de Coopération Agricole et Rurale (Technical Centre for Agricultural

and Rural Cooperation) FAO Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations FARA Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa FORAGRO Forum for the Americas on Agricultural Research and Technology Development GAP Gender in Agriculture Partnership GCARD Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development GCWA Global Conference on Women in Agriculture GFAR Global Forum on Agricultural Research GFRAS Global Forum on Rural Advisory Services ICAR Indian Council of Agricultural Research IFAD International Fund for Agricultural Development IFPRI International Food Policy Research Institute ILO International Labour Organization MDGs Millennium Development Goals NARS National Agricultural Research Systems NGO Non-Governmental Organization OPHI Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative PanAAC Pan-African Agribusiness and Agro-industry Consortium SMEs Small and Medium Enterprises UNRISD UN Research Institute on Sustainable Development WEAI Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index WFP World Food Programme YPARD Young Professionals in Agricultural Research for Development

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Annex2: Summary of results of an e-survey on GAP (updated January 2013)

Introduction In Section 2 (pages 12-14) of this GAP Note, one of the ‘Next Steps in the GAP Development Process’ was to expand the multi-stakeholder consultative process to a wider range of organizations. To achieve this, an e-survey was carried out by the multi-stakeholder Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR) in October and November 2012.The aim was to take stock of ongoing and planned activities by various organizations in relation to gender and agriculture, and to better understand the challenges, needs, and priorities to which this GAP network could respond. The e-survey was available on SurveyMonkey at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TNNM3Z8

An invitation to the survey was sent to the GCWA and GCARD2 participants as well as to many other people from a wide range of organizations including civil society, NGOs, international organizations, national and local development organizations, universities and government agencies. The survey was answered by more than150 people representing over 100 different organizations operating at global, regional and country/local levels and carrying out a range of policy, technical, research, capacity building/training, institution-building, monitoring & evaluation (M&E) and information dissemination and communication activities. Figure 1shows the regional representation of the respondents.

This annex presents a summary of thee-survey results; a full report is available on GFAR’s GCARD2/GAP website.

E-Survey Results

Challenges and blockages to gender activities The survey asked respondents ‘What problems do you/your organization often face in carrying out gender-related activities?’The responses showed a range of problems, some common amongst the various levels of organizations which is illustrated in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Table showing types of problems faced in carrying out gender-related activities, and which levels of organizations face such problems, as indicated by the respondents of the e-survey

Lack of data &knowledge on

Limited/lack of capacity/skills

Insufficient management

Lack of Lack of

32%

37%

10%

9%

5% 7%

Figure 1: Pie chart showing the percentage of survey respondents from 6 different regions of

the world

Africa

Asia and Pacific

Europe

South America

North America

Middle East and North Africa

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gender in agriculture

& shortage of personnel

support awareness funding

International organization

X X X

Regional body X X X

National organization

X X X X X

Gender work underway or planned When asked what ‘gender in agriculture’ activities were currently being undertaken or were being planned by the respondents or by their organizations, a number of activities at both institutional and operational levels were listed ((see)Table 1). Interestingly two particular areas related to agriculture which were often mentioned as a focus of gender activities were (1) Climate change and (2) Nutrition.

Table 1: Ongoing and planned gender in agriculture activities at institutional and operational level

At the institutional level: At the operational level

•Awareness-raising at all levels

•Gender-aware or -transformative policy & strategy formulation & implementation; gender mainstreaming in institutional structures &systems

•Organizational restructuring and change; developing gender expertise and establishing new gender specialist posts

•Setting up networks, platforms, units, Institutes to focus on gender in agriculture

•Capacity building/training/ education activities

•Improving representation and participation of women in decision-making and other activities

•Capacity building/training/ education activities

•Gender-related research and integrating gender into AR4D; gender mainstreaming in projects

•Activities to promote and to measure women’s empowerment

•Development and use of gender-focused research tools and methodologies in project activities

•Development &dissemination of methodologies &technologies to reduce drudgery in women’s agricultural& domestic work

•Developing and supporting self-help groups and cooperatives

•Financial (micro-finance) support

•Communication and knowledge sharing activities

Priority action areas The survey aimed to find out what activities were already being undertaken by people and organizations that fit within the five priority areas that were identified at the GCWA (Section 1.4, page 6). A summary, using a set of key categories that emerged across the responses, is presented in Table 2.

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Table 2: A summary of ongoing and planned activities that e-survey respondents indicated fit within the five priority areas of GAP.

1.Making women/gender aspects in agriculture more visible &recognized

2.Strenthgening the evidence &knowledge base to address gender/women’s issues in agriculture

3.Promoting collective action & leadership of rural women in order to take advantage of opportunities & address discrimination

4.Establishing globally women's rights at large

5.Promoting women's ownership & ensuring availability of capital resources

Raising awareness at all levels

Developing/using data & evidence for awareness-raising, advocacy, policy

Building awareness of gender equality as a basic human right

Awareness raising/advocacy for policy and legal changes

Integrating gender into policies &activities of all types

Integrating gender into research

Identifying, designing and carrying out specific and strategic gender research

Action research on gender

Conducting research on women’s rights

Promoting Strategic gender research/gender assessments on ownership of/use rights to productive assets

Developing knowledge products(data publications, video)/ Generating gender specific info &

Developing knowledge products(e.g. database)/ Generating gender data & information (e.g. assessment studies

Publishing information on women’s rights, fight for women’s rights

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data

Strengthening capacity building &Training

Capacity building programmes

Strengthening women’s leadership & management skills

Capacity building/education in women’s rights

Forming cooperatives, self-help groups(SHGs)

Setting up & strengthening women’s SHGs& cooperatives

Encouraging micro-financing for women’s productive enterprises through SHGs

Disseminating case studies and success stories

Showcasing success stories)/ Documenting and sharing current activities undertaken by women

Carrying out/documenting& sharing case studies& good practices/Demo activities

Documenting and sharing success stories

Promoting income generation& enterprise opportunities

Promoting women’s individual and collective income-generating &employment activities

Providing employment& livelihood opportunities

Providing women improved crop varieties and planting material

Organizing gender-focused events(workshops, seminars)

Participation in key gender-related events

Organizing events and sessions on gender in agriculture topics

Promoting women’s rights and sharing evidence at events

Improving participation of women in research and other agriculture-related activities

Involving women in a wider range of activities/ensuring women play role in various types of decision making

Lobbying for more women to participate in agriculture, especially leadership

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The survey revealed that many activities were being undertaken in the first three priority areas but little was being done in priority areas 4 and 5. Recognizing this, some respondents indicated their interest or intention to work more in these last 2 areas and also called for activities within all these 5 priority areas to be carried out by others.

Overall 96.7% of respondents indicated that they agreed with these five priority areas for the GAP.

GAP network objectives and benefits To determine the main objectives that GAP should have, the survey asked respondents to rate five proposed ideas. The objective which was found to be most important for the respondents was to ‘Facilitate knowledge sharing, dialogue and debate among GAP professionals’ which received the highest percentage of respondents rating it as vital [84.1%], closely followed by objective to ‘Bring members together to plan and coordinate advocacy activities’, supported by 80.5% of respondents. The other objectives received more mixed results about their importance. Table 3shows all results:

Table 3: E-survey results of rating exercise of proposed objectives for GAP as vital, nice or not necessary.

Facilitate knowledge sharing, dialogue &debate among GAP professionals

Bring members together to plan & coordinate advocacy activities

Serve as a clearinghouse for GAP members to discuss how to work together

Establish prize to be awarded at GCARD for best gender success stories

Assist with development & validation of strategies, action plans &policies

Vital 84.1% 80.5% 58.0% 58.0% 72.0%

Nice to do but not vital 14.6% 18.3% 30.9% 32.1% 24.4%

NOT necessary 1.2% 1.2% 11.1% 9.9% 3.7%

The respondents also suggested a number of additional objectives and benefits that the GAP network could provide, including:

• providing funding and provide information on other funding options

• carrying out capacity-building activities

• developing some common programmes and joint activities

• providing support for documenting and disseminating key practices, case studies, and success stories

• organizing events for sharing knowledge, discussing and planning activities related to gender in agriculture

• developing practical tools and guidelines on gender issues

• undertaking advocacy, especially at a high level

• developing and maintaining a gender in agriculture a resource base(website/directory/database)of experts, trainers, training material, studies, papers, data etc focused on gender in agriculture

• developing indicators to assess gender-differentiated development outcomes

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• setting up and running an online discussion forum on gender in agriculture topics

• linking academics and development practitioners

• making linkages between work on promoting youth/young professionals in agriculture and work on gender/ women in agriculture

• supporting/carrying out reviews, M&E and assessments of gender- and non-gender focused policies, programmes and activities using gender-sensitive and gender-disaggregated indicators.

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Annex 3 (Draft Jan2013)

Gender in Agriculture Partnership (GAP)

Transforming agriculture to empower women and deliver food, nutrition and income security

Why a Gender in Agriculture Partnership?

Women’s contributions to agricultural production, processing, marketing and household food security and nutrition often go unrecognized. Yet, on average, they represent 43 percent of the world’s agricultural labour force6 and 47 percent of the global fisheries labour force.7

GAP’s mission

Despite their significant roles, women commonly suffer huge gender inequalities in access to land, other key productive resources, markets, jobs and information. A growing body of compelling evidence (Box 1) shows that reducing these gender inequalities and improving women’s and girls’ social status leads to substantial increases in agricultural productivity, value-addition and incomes, reduced losses and wastage, improved food quality and safety, and better food and nutrition security, particularly at the household level.

To place gender equity and women’s empowerment at the heart of agricultural policy, research and development, capacity-development and institutional-building agendas. This will mean rethinking needs, shaping policies, promoting resource mobilization and action, and sharing good practice to empower women in agriculture. Such an approach requires the re-conceptualization of agriculture as a vehicle that involves both the production of food and consideration of household and community well-being.

GAP’s vision: A transformed agriculture where gender equity enables food, nutrition and income security for the rural poor.

6 FAO. 2011. State of Food and Agriculture. Women in Agriculture: Closing the Gender Gap for Development. Rome.

7 World Bank, FAO and WorldFish Center. 2010. The Hidden Harvests: the global contribution of capture fisheries. World Bank, Washington DC.

Box 1: Benefits from reducing gender gaps

Reducing the gender gap in farmers’ access to productive resources could raise yields on women’s farms by 20-30 %. This would raise total agricultural yields in developing countries by 2.5-4% and reduce the number of hungry people in the world by 100-150 million (FAO, 2011: 42)

Increasing the share of household income earned by women contributes positively to household food consumption and nutritional outcomes (FAO, 2011: 43)

Food and nutrition security are worse in countries with high gender inequality gaps; for example, the rates of child malnutrition in South Asia are twice those in Sub-Saharan Africa despite South Asia’s better record in food supplies (FAO, 2011: 43)

Comparison of IFPRI’s 2009 Global Hunger Index with the World Economic Forum’s 2008 Global Gender Gap Index showed that higher levels of hunger are associated with lower literacy rates and access to education for women (Lele, 2012: 3)

“In order to awaken the people, it is the women who have to be awakened. Once she is on the move, the family moves, the village moves, the nation moves.”

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister

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GAP stakeholders

GAP is an open and inclusive network of institutions and individuals who have come together through their shared concerns at the urgent need for large-scale action on gender-based issues in agriculture, that transcends individual institutional efforts. Linkages have been fostered via a series of actions facilitated through the multi-stakeholder Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR). By this common demand, GAP was initiated among the 3 Rome-based UN agencies (FAO, IFAD and WFP) with mandates for agriculture, food and nutrition, gender specialists from the CGIAR system (the Consortium Office’s Gender Unit, AWARD, IFPRI and CRPs 2 & 4), Regional Fora (to date AARINENA, APAARI, FORAGRO and FARA) and civil society networks such as DIMITRA. With the Secretariat of the Global Forum playing a key role in providing the opportunities and collectively-owned space to mobilize processes and linkages, a wide range of stakeholders are now being actively engaged, including key actors from civil society, national agricultural research, research institutes and universities, the private sector, policy makers, donors, media and advocacy partners, further multilateral organizations (e.g. ILO, UN Women, World Bank, UNRISD, WHO) and movements (e.g. SUN, GFRAS), and development organizations (see Annex 1 for acronyms). The launch of GAP

Following a range of partnership-building actions during 2011, including GFAR’s support to the work of IFPRI, FAO, AWARD, FARA-SSA-CP, AARINENA and ICAR & APAARI, GAP was formally launched through the Global Conference on Women in Agriculture (GCWA, New Delhi, 13-15 March 2012), organized by ICAR and APAARI with GFAR, BMGF, IFPRI and others. Building on the GCWA outcomes, and inspired by Millennium Development Goal 3 (MDG 3) “Promote gender equality and empower women”, the Second Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development (GCARD2, Punta del Este, Uruguay, 29 October – 1 November 2012), organized through the Global Forum in partnership with the CGIAR, provided opportunities to deepen the discussion among the partners. These and related gender issues, were explored in several sessions of the Conference, including the plenary session and sessions on gender, nutrition and capacity development. Specific plans were discussed and agreed among GAP partners in the briefing papers describing commitments and follow-on actions from GCARD2.

Initial priorities for GAP

A number of cross-cutting priorities identified across the GCWA thematic areas constitute the initial building blocks of the GAP framework for action. It was clear from GCWA and the recent gender strategies of various major institutions that policies of identifying a gender focal point within an institution have not achieved the change and mainstream impact required and that these units are often sidelined in practice. Transforming the gender agenda requires collective action to create a critical mass on the issue and specific actions at all levels, from household and community up to national, regional and international scales.

Identified priorities are:

1. Mobilizing for collective inter-institutional and cross-sectoral advocacy to raise awareness of women’s needs in agriculture (Box 2) and ensure their visibility in terms of their contributions;

2. Generating and compiling the collective information and evidence base to show the economic and social impacts and value of addressing women’s needs in agriculture;

3. Encouraging collective action and leadership among women by fostering practical programmes and international actions that directly meet their needs and work to make agricultural support systems (research, extension, education, farmer organizations and cooperatives, public, private & civil sectors) gender-sensitive;

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4. Addressing gender discrimination through support to the development of appropriate focus and policies in agricultural institutions of all forms, advocacy for legislative and enforcement mechanisms and establishing women’s rights (e.g. access to markets, land ownership, equal wages for work of comparable value) and

5. Working through policy-shaping multilateral bodies and national systems, ensuring that institutions and support mechanisms promote women’s ownership and control of resources (e.g. land, bank accounts) and leadership roles within agricultural organizations, and foster social change to enable greater female participation in household and community decision-making.

An e-survey in October-November 2012, to which over 150 existing and potential members of GAP responded, representing over 100 different organizations throughout all regions (Annex 2), found that over 96.7 percent of the respondents agreed with these five priority areas for GAP.

Initial roles that GAP could perform

As a multi-stakeholder network for collective action, rather than an implementing institution, GAP is well placed to fill a current gap in the AR4D architecture by:

1. Facilitating dialogue and debate among committed GAP professionals of all forms on priority AR4D needs and actions to ensure gender equity in agriculture, identify potential trade-offs and unintended consequences of such actions for some population groups. Share data, learning, indices of empowerment and examples of good practice for remedial actions and/or promoting alternative livelihood opportunities.

2. Bringing GAP partners together to plan and coordinate advocacy activities on women/gender in AR4D at major conferences and through the many formal and social media channels open to the diverse partners involved.

3. Serving as a clearinghouse for GAP partners to discuss how they could best work together, combining existing resources and actions and collectively mobilizing and leveraging new resources and programmes for maximum impact, while reducing the inefficiencies and sterile competition that are endemic with current fragmented efforts.

Box 2: Some substantive needs highlighted at GCWA and GCARD2

Identify/quantify the gender gaps in access to resources and services in fisheries, livestock, horticulture and minor crops (e.g. pulses) and estimate the costs of neglecting women.

Reposition nutrition within the agricultural and broader development agenda. This requires recognizing and addressing gender-related constraints/needs that emerge from (a) the long-standing focus on the production/supply of staple cereals which has often been at the expense of attention to complementary food crops (often minor food crops and vegetables grown by women), and fish and livestock products (commonly processed by women), which contain vital micronutrients critical for nutrition security; (b) women’s key role in household nutrition which also depends on the inter-related pillars of food provisioning, cooking and storage, care, health, water, sanitation and hygiene, for which women are custodians, as well as their knowledge and decision-making power.

Give greater attention to developing and disseminating productivity-enhancing and drudgery-reducing technologies for post-production/capture processing and storage, areas in which women often predominate. This would include exploiting new opportunities for value-addition and incomes, producing more nourishing, palatable and diversified food products, improving quality and safety, and reducing losses and waste.

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4. Establishing a prize/prizes to be awarded at each GCARD for the best example(s) of gender success stories from all stakeholder groups.

5. Assisting with the identification of national and regional gender-based needs in agriculture and development and validation of national and international policies, strategies, programmes and collective action plans to eliminate gender inequalities and empower women in agriculture and household food and nutrition security.

The e-survey found that 84.1 and 80.5 percent of respondents, respectively, considered roles 1 and 2 above to be filling a “vital” need, while 70 percent considered role 5 “vital”. Roles 3 and 4 were considered “vital” by 58 percent of respondents (Annex 2).

The process of building GAP

The roles envisaged for GAP require an open dialogue and inclusive framework. GFAR is working to foster the partnership but its leadership and actions depend on the partners working among themselves and each bringing their particular strengths and areas of focus.

The GAP concept envisages scope for delivery at different levels, with household, community and national actions, supported in turn by regional and international actors and drawing on S-S learning as well as support from international agencies, together creating a strong collective voice.

To do so effectively requires a wholesale process that creates opportunities and synergies for change.

This requires:

1. A governance mechanism that links leading national and international actions across all agricultural sectors and enables mobilization of actions at regional and global levels;

2. Effective and open sharing of knowledge and accessible information resources;

3. Alignment of investment mechanisms and institutional resources;

4. Demonstrable pilot actions in specific countries that mobilize diverse actions and capabilities together; and

5. Measurable change in the empowerment and roles of women in agriculture.

To do so, it is proposed that:

An initial International Working Group of around 30 members is brought together through the Global Forum, physically meeting at least once per year and involving CGIAR gender focal points, FAO, WFP and IFAD, AWARD, UN Women and the World Bank, as well as national and Regional representatives identified from different regions such as South Asia (e.g. ICAR), Africa, Latin America and West Asia/North Africa, civil society representatives from NGOs, farmers’ and women’s groups, representatives from youth (YPARD) small enterprise and market-based organizations (PanAAC), advisory services (GFRAS) and from some key donor organizations (Asian Development Bank, BMGF, CTA, Irish Aid). The Working Group will self-select a Chair and meeting basis, with GFAR providing the Secretariat. Regions are asked to consider the value of regional working groups fostering national gender equity actions.

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Specific collective actions to be planned by thematic groups of interested parties self-identified from the Working Group over a 3 year basis, linked to existing programmes, stakeholder commitments and national priorities, to enable and foster collective actions and demonstrable change on the ground, using the principles developed in GCWA.

References

FAO. 2011. State of Food and Agriculture. Women in Agriculture: Closing the Gender Gap for Development. Rome.

Lele, Uma, The Incredible Gender Gap, presented at the GCWA, New Delhi, March 2012

World Bank, FAO and WorldFish Center. 2010. The Hidden Harvests: the global contribution of capture fisheries. World Bank, Washington DC.

ICAR, APAARI & GFAR Synthesis report, The Global Conference on Women in Agriculture, New Delhi, March 2012

http://www.ifpri.org/publication/engendering-agricultural-research-development-and-extension

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTGENAGRLIVSOUBOOK/Resources/CompleteBook.pdf

http://www.egfar.org/content/c22-individual-learning-and-empowerment-women-and-youth

Annex 1: Acronyms

AARINENA Association of Agricultural Research Institutions in the Near East and North Africa APAARI Asia-Pacific Association of Agricultural Research Institutions AR4D Agricultural Research for Development AWARD African Women in Agricultural Research and Development BMGF Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation CACAARI Central Asia & Caucasus Association of Agricultural research Institutions CGIAR Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research CRPs CGIAR Research Programs CSO Civil Society Organization CTA Centre Technique de Coopération Agricole et Rurale (Technical Centre for Agricultural

and Rural Cooperation) FAO Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations FARA Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa FORAGRO Forum for the Americas on Agricultural Research and Development GAP Gender in Agriculture Partnership GCARD Global Conference on Agricultural Research for Development GCWA Global Conference on Women in Agriculture GFAR Global Forum on Agricultural Research GFRAS Global Forum on Rural Advisory Services ICAR Indian Council of Agricultural Research IFAD International Fund for Agricultural Development IFPRI International Food Policy Research Institute ILO International Labour Organization

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MDGs Millennium Development Goals NARS National Agricultural Research Systems NGO Non-Governmental Organization PanAAC Pan-African Agribusiness and Agro-industry Consortium SMEs Small and Medium Enterprises UNRISD UN Research Institute on Sustainable Development WFP World Food Programme YPARD Young Professionals in Agricultural Research for Development

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Annex 4: Summaries of participants’ updates on their GAP-related programmes CGIAR (Ruth Meinzen-Dick)

The CGIAR has established an active gender network, coordinated by Jacqueline Ashby and which drew on the GAP principles during its formulation. Each CGIAR Research Programs has drafted/is in the process of drafting a gender strategy. WorldFish hosted a workshop on Gender Transformative Approaches in Penang in October 2012. You can find the workshop report at http://www.worldfishcenter.org/resources/publications/building-coalitions-creating-change-agenda-gender-transformative-research. A video with a set of interviews about GTA is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2IPKzXsJKo&feature=youtu.be . IFPRI has established an online Resource Center for the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index. It contains links to publications, videos, and training materials on how to apply the Index: http://www.ifpri.org/book-9075/ourwork/program/weai-resource-center

Global Donor Platform for Rural Development (GDPRD) (Lynn Brown)

Since the last Annual General Meeting and Board meeting of the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development (GDPRD), the Platform has launched a work stream on agriculture and nutrition, chaired by Lynn Brown. There is also a work stream on gender that has not been very active due to a lack of a donor with time to lead. The agriculture and nutrition work stream has sought to disseminate information on the linkages, and to link to gender. A number of briefings have been done, including on bio fortification and the DFID review of agriculture and nutrition. The group also hosted an event on agriculture, nutrition and gender within the GCARD2 as well as a pre-event workshop on the same theme. The International Conference on Nutrition+21 (November 2013) (Libor Stloukal)

The FAO/WHO International Conference on Nutrition+21 (ICN+21, 13-15 November 2013) provides a good opportunity for GAP to contribute to the preparatory process as well as the event itself. The lead technical person in FAO’s Nutrition Division is Brian Thompson, and ESW’s focal point on the ICN+21 Scientific Advisory Committee is Vito Cistulli. The preparatory process includes an FAO Expert Meeting on ‘Nutrition-Sensitive Food and Agriculture Systems’ (end June/July 2013) and Jennie Dey de Pryck will follow up with Brian Thompson to explore ways and means for GAP’s involvement and report back to GAP partners.

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UN Women and the UN Agencies

a) Gender-Related Research within the UN System: a joint UN Women - UNRISD workshop (15-16 November 2012) (Mark Holderness & Libor Stloukal)

The workshop explored the status of gender research across the UN agencies with the aim of identifying thematic synergies, major gaps and opportunities for more coherent research on gender themes within the UN system and how, inter alia, research can help identify and address policy goals and identify new challenges that should be part of the UN agenda. It was also intended to explore how collaboration can be fostered within the system and duplication avoided.

Efforts are underway by UN women and others to include an inequality agenda in the post 2015 development goals, based on rights-based approaches and the substantive realization of these rights. Inequality in general was recognized as a key area for future consideration post-2015, gender, class, etc and in which the question of who sets the agenda is very important – and whose voice gets privileged.

Some of the recommendations improved practices expressed (the workshop report is not yet available), included:

• A move away from emphasis on quick-fix advocacy

• Invest in reflection and engagement before research

• Avoid multiplicity of pilot cases

• Go outside the box, find commonsense big issue areas of change

• Foster true collaboration through practical linkages owned by all, recognizing the strengths and perspectives of each agency

• Consistent & concerted actions towards a theory of change (around mainstreamed change) and achieving transformative change

• Consider use of scorecards

• Build back from desired outcomes

• Consider research and its enabling environment

• Flagship reports need to be followed through into use

• Understand new concepts of patriarchy, discrimination etc.

• Consider how in practice CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women) is being used to transform gender relations and the implications of such policies being applied internationally.

• Scaling up is a huge factor, that needs consolidation, which is likely to be via UN Women.

b) UN Women, FAO, IFAD, WFP Joint Programme: Accelerating Progress toward the Economic Empowerment of Rural Women (Libor Stloukal)

Developed by the three Rome-based agencies and UN Women, this Programme (launched in 2012) is aimed to generate more lasting and wider-scale improvements in the livelihoods and rights of rural women, by capitalizing on each agency’s mandate, comparative advantage and institutional strength.

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The Programme is articulated around four outcomes for rural women: improved food and nutrition security; increased incomes to sustain livelihoods; enhanced leadership and participation in rural institutions and in shaping laws; and a more gender-responsive policy environment for the economic empowerment of rural women. The Programme is operating in 7 countries (Ethiopia, Liberia, Niger, Rwanda, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal and Guatemala), each of which has or shortly will be organizing a national consultative workshop to undertake a situation analysis and develop a country plan for concrete activities. The participating agencies are fund-raising, both globally and at national level, as $35 million are needed for this 5 year initiative. Ms Michelle Bachelet sees this as one of her flagship programmes.

FARA (Ann Dela Apekey)

FARA has just completed a study on opportunities and constraints for mainstreaming gender in African AR4D.This provides a road map that helps in re-orienting the approach to gender in AR4D in our organization and in our partner institutions such as the SROs and NARS. Gender is mainstreamed into the new FARA strategic plan and medium term operational plan and this provides a good framework for ensuring implementation and reporting on gender There has been a consultative meeting in September 2012, in which initial discussions have been held on constituting an advisory group of gender focal persons in Africa to facilitate creation of sub- regional structures for implementing the GAP and the GCWA2 follow ups as well as preparation for GCWA2 The 6th FARA Agricultural Science week will hold in Accra Ghana, between 15 and 19 July 2013 under the theme Africa feeding Africa. There is a sub-theme on “education and empowerment of women and youth for improved productivity and resilience of African Agriculture”. There will be two days pre-congress activities on women and youth. There also activities scheduled to strengthen the capacities of the SROs and other pillar four institutions in the following areas;-

i. Giving training on how to conduct gender responsive research in agriculture; ii. Helping partner institutions who do not have as yet have gender focal persons establish a

system for mainstreaming gender into their work. iii. On the next phase of Niger work vis-à-vis SSA-CP, DIMITRA etc and Humid tropics CRP :-

FARA has been involved in the Niger work and is still interested in continuing iv. FARA is committed to working on the implementation of the GCWA1 recommendations and

will submit a concept note and proposal to GFAR for consideration now that there is some level of clarify on the GAP process.

AWARD (Vicki Wilde)

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African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD) is a professional development program that strengthens the research and leadership skills of African women in agricultural science, empowering them to contribute more effectively to poverty alleviation and food security in sub-Saharan Africa. Following a highly competitive process, AWARD Fellowships are awarded on the basis of intellectual merit, leadership capacity, and the potential of the scientist’s research to improve the daily lives of smallholder farmers, especially women. Between 2008 and 2011, AWARD directly engaged 619 scientists from 181 organizations, including fellows, mentors, fellows’ mentees, and research attachment supervisors. More than 23,000 young people (80% girls) have also been reached through role-modeling events led by AWARD Fellows. AWARD’s latest news includes the following: 1. AWARD’s second five-year phase was approved by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and USAID. AWARD II puts more emphasis on strengthening institutions and building sustainability. 2. A new round of 70 AWARD Fellowship winners was selected from 1,094 applications, bringing the total number of AWARD Fellows thus far to 320. Their names and institutions will be announced in a press release on 21 February. 3. AWARD’s theory of change and empowerment model was largely confirmed by four years of monitoring data. Based on its learning, AWARD is discussing the idea of adding a fifth power to its empowerment model: the power to empower others. Thus far AWARD’s empowerment model includes four powers: the power within (e.g. confidence), the power to (e.g. produce scientific results), the power over (e.g. win new funding), and the power with (e.g. collaborate with others to challenge the status quo). 4. Analysis of monitoring data from the first 180 AWARD Fellows provides credible evidence that AWARD’s integrated package of interventions supports the development of more capable, confident, and influential African women in ARD. A majority of AWARD Fellows demonstrate genuine growth in their performance as researchers. They are also become more gender-aware and their work more gender-responsive, and therefore more relevant to the needs of the farmer communities they aim to serve. 5. AWARD hopes to launch in 2013 a pilot project for francophone countries, and in 2014 to expand to Asia. For more information about AWARD, see: www.awardfellowships.org

GFRAS Gender Working Group (Magdalena Blum)

The GFRAS Gender Working Group was:

• Established in 2012, had its first meeting in Copenhagen in August 2012 • Development of Concept Note (CN) based on discussions in Copenhagen and in The GFRAS

Annual Meeting in Manila in Sept. 2012

The GFRAS Gender Working Group plans to:

1. Create a virtual knowledge sharing platform 2. Develop a conceptual paper on gender equality in RAS 3. Conduct gender mainstreaming of GFRAS 4. Assist regional networks in mainstreaming gender in their work

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5. Face to face meeting of the WG 6. Gender related topics to be integrated in agriculture training curricula 7. Identify important topics for research in gender equality 8. Expand AWARD (professional development programme of the CGIAR) to rural advisory services

and other regions 9. The e-conference Prioritisation and Planning for Capacities in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the

face-to-face meeting on the global implications.

With regard to collaboration in GAP, the GFRAS WG plans to:

• Participate in the next GCWA conference in 2015 and its preparation. • Produce materials for the GCWA in the meantime. • For the GAP Concept Note (CN), it is clear that the GFRAS Gender WG has an obvious role to play

as several of the key priorities listed address agricultural extension and GFRAS Gender activities concern all 5 priority areas defined by GCWA and GAP

• The CN also states GFRAS as a member of a Technical WG of GAP • The GFRAS WG moreover has a task of identifying important topics for research in gender

equality in RAS and GAP is an important link to promote these topics – just as GAP should have an interest in getting them.

There is a need to follow the progress of GAP in order to better define the GFRAS contribution - and set some resources aside for participation in eventual meetings.

Mark Holderness and Kristin Davis subsequently agreed that gender issues addressed by GFRAS Gender WG and its partnership actions with other GAP partners would be good specific uses of elements of the financial support provided by GFAR to GFRAS. This will be confirmed by an exchange of notes to confirm which specific GFRAS actions should be financially attributed here.

Action K Davis, M Holderness

YPARD (Marina Cherbonnier)

YPARD, the Young Professional’s Platform for Agricultural Research for Development, has a mission to serve as a global platform through which young professionals (under 40) can express their ideas and realize their full potential towards dynamic agricultural research for development. YPARD is a movement of young professionals. It creates spaces for deliberation and interaction. At the heart of YPARD as a movement are its members, who are encouraged to become active in their area, spread the news about YPARD to other young professionals, encourage a stronger voice of youth in their own organizations and share their views and ideas with other young professionals in the network. In order to realize its vision, YPARD has the following strategic objectives,

• To facilitate exchange of information and knowledge among young professionals across disciplines, professions, age and regions.

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• To broaden opportunities for young professionals to contribute to strategic ARD policy debates.

• To promote agriculture among young people.

• To facilitate access to resource and capacity building opportunities. Although YPARD doesn’t have a specific string of actions focusing on women, and specifically young women, YPARD has stressed the importance of the role of young female professionals and the need to support them, through its diverse activities. The most representative may be:

• Showcase of portraits of young women in the field of agriculture, as a mean to promote agriculture and propose a number of role models to make the sector attractive and inspire others. http://ypard.net/showcase

• Supporting young women to participate to key ARD events with the perspective of gender balanced representation of the youth (i.e GCARD2), facilitating the participation of a young female member to the workshop for the African Foresight Academy (http://ypard.net/testimonials/engaging-youth-foresight-activities-global-foresight-academy-african-chapter )

• (Anecdotic) Contribution to the discussions on How do ICTs play a role in supporting young female professionals in agriculture? at the occasion of the International Day of Girls in ICT (http://www.e-agriculture.org/news/how-do-icts-play-role-supporting-young-female-professionals-agriculture ) . Available also in French: http://www.e-agriculture.org/fr/news/les-atouts-des-tics-pour-motiver-les-jeunes-femmes-dans-le-domaine-de-l-agriculture

YPARD envisages working on young women’s empowerment around 3 key areas highlighted during the GCARD2 discussions on youth and women particularly:

• entrepreneurship • mentorship • the role of ICTs

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Annex 5: Extract from the Minutes on a Skype call with Dr Mahmoud Solh, DG ICARDA, and GFAR, 28 Jan 2013

A.

Gender issues

1. It was recognized that “gender” cross-cut several of the broader issues/interventions discussed, for example: a) In the context of developing more effective mechanisms for strengthening the research-development continuum and related impact pathways, and in promoting a value chain approach, attention to gender is crucial (because of the fairly rigid gender division of labour among different nodes of the value chain, and trends of increasing feminization of agricultural labour in the MENA region). b) In the growing use of ICTs which can provide a culturally-sensitive mechanism to improve rural women’s access to knowledge, markets and financial services. c) In encouraging private sector involvement in AR4D, including the development/provision/after-sales servicing of technologies suitable for women farmers and entrepreneurs. d) Priority to create gender-appropriate employment for the rural youth (male and female), particularly in the Arab countries where 45% of the youth are unemployed (and their unemployment is politically explosive). 2. With regard to GAP support in addressing these gender issues, decisions were taken to: a) Involve Jennie Dey de Pryck on behalf of GAP in a small working group to be set up to prepare the CRP1.1 gender strategy. Action: Mahmoud Solh to review/clear these meeting minutes, and send copy to Bill Payne (CRP 1.1 Director) with request to set up this group, which would include, inter alia, Malika Martini (ICARDA) and Jennie. b) ICARDA will collaborate with other GAP partners to assist AARINENA in developing its gender strategy, and in its subsequent implementation. This activity could be developed as complementary activity to preparing the CRP1.1 gender strategy. Action: Mahmoud Solh and Mark Holderness to contact Mohammed Ajlouni, Executive Director, AARINENA with proposal. Jennie Dey de Pryck, among others, to provide technical inputs. c) ICARDA will collaborate with other GAP partners to assist CACAARI in (i) carrying out an e-survey on gender-related needs in AR4D in the region in early 2013, with the objective of feeding into the analysis of the global survey and also as an initial step to developing a gender strategy for the CACARRI region, and (ii) organizing a Regional Conference on Women in Agricultural Innovation (20-22 May, 2014, Bukhara, Uzbekistan). Action: Mahmoud Solh and Mark Holderness to follow up with Alisher Tashmatov, CACAARI Executive Secretary.

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d) GAP will contribute to the workshop to be organized by GAP partners, ICARDA, AARINENA, FARA and others, with GFAR Secretariat support, on re-establishing AR4D capacity in post-conflict and protracted crisis countries planned for November 2013 (possibly in Cairo). Action: Mahmoud Solh, Kamel Shideed (ICARDA) and Mark Holderness or his representative to follow up. e) With regard to GAP’s advocacy mission, it will be important to engage with women’s organizations and movements in the region. It was agreed to concentrate first on preparing the CRP1.1 and the AARINENA gender strategy (that would involve consultations/participation of these women’s organizations/movements) and then consider further action. Action: Mahmoud Solh and ICARDA and AARINENA colleagues to identify suitable, active women’s organizations/movements and counterparts.

B.

It was agreed to organize a workshop on building agricultural research in post-conflict countries to be held in one of the countries affected by the recent developments in the Arab countries, possibly Egypt. The workshop will be organized by GFAR and ICARDA and possibly other partners in the fall of 2013.

Proposed Workshop on Post-Conflict Countries

Action: Kamel Shideed (ICARDA) and Mark Holderness or his representative