Volume 2, Number 1
October 1996

CGIAR Gender Analysis Program

Hilary Feldstein, CGIAR Gender Research Program Leader, updates subscribers on her work at the CGIAR Centers. At ICW95, the CGIAR Gender Program reported on the progress in the CGIAR since 1991 and strategies for the future. The Gender Analysis Program is focusing in three areas: capacity building for IARC and NARS scientists; support for research and methods development at the IARCs; and dissemination of cases demonstrating impact and of other materials about or of use to the CGIAR.

In 1996, ICRISAT held a conference with a wide range of feminist researchers and NGOs to discuss its future gender strategy. IIMI held a center-wide gender training and each division has now embarked on a plan to better integrate gender into its ongoing research. The IIMI gender specialist, Margreet Zwarteveen, recently won the 1996 N.D. Gulbati Memorial International Award at the International Congress on Irrigation and Drainage. This is a welcome acknowledgment of Margreet's hard work and of the place gender is beginning to take in scientific organizations.

IPGRI, with FAO, recently sponsored a workshop to follow up the Leipzig Global Plan of Action (GPA) for the Conservation and Use of Plant Genetic Resources (PGR). The GPA makes strong statements associating the conservation of PGR with the knowledge of women, particularly in the marginal lands, which are often an important source of biodiversity. Participants proposed continuing advocacy at further international meetings, a plan for developing training materials, and the sponsorship of pilot studies on relieving the constraints to the production and use of diverse varieties. Most significant for the CGIAR has been the first global seminar of the Systemwide Initiative for Participatory Research and Gender Analysis, for which CIAT is the convening center. The six-day workshop, with over 40 participants from Centers, NARSs, NGOs, and farmer organizations, resulted in an inclusive process of plan-ning and decisionmaking for the workshop and for the SWI when funded and in a strong framework for comparative research across plant breeding and natural re-source management. Because of the SWIs pivotal role in looking at the contribution of gender analysis and gender-sensitive methodologies in a comparative frame-work, the CGIAR Gender Analysis Program plans to put much of its resources into this research and capacity-building effort.