Gender

Last week, the Building Coalitions, Creating Change workshop brought together donors, researchers and practitioners on gender and development to discuss a gender transformative approach to agricultural research in development . The workshop was a major step forward, with participants giving us the benefit of their considerable knowledge, experience and energy. With their help, we have really started to get to grips with putting this concept into practice.

In a previous Expiscor blog post WorldFish Director General Stephen Hall laid out the rationale for adopting a gender transformative approach that goes beyond just considering the symptoms of gender disparity, and addresses the social norms and attitudes that lie behind them. The CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agricultural Systems has placed a transformative approach at the heart of its gender strategy. But how can this be turned into a reality?

I believe a gender transformative approach is key if WorldFish is to achieve the development impacts it is looking for – but what is it and how will it affect our organizational culture?

Despite decades of agricultural research and development efforts, the challenges of poverty and hunger persist. There is a growing recognition that integrating gender issues effectively in such efforts will help to improve food security, wellbeing and equity.