Register now to attend the upcoming webinar ‘Ensuring gender-responsive plant and animal breeding – A practical decision checklist’ which will take place on Thursday 17 May from 3:00 – 4:00pm GMT+2:00. The webinar is organized by the CGIAR Collaborative Platform for Gender Research, in collaboration with the CGIAR Gender and Breeding Initiative (GBI) and the CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas (RTB).
Thursday, 17 May | 3:00 – 4:00PM CEST
Background
The widespread adoption of improved crop varieties and animal breeds depends on the benefits they provide for the women and men involved in their production, consumption and marketing. For breeders to meet the needs of resource-poor users, social scientists and breeders need to work together to understand the priorities that women and men assign to genetically determined traits, such as size, shape and taste, and reflect those priorities in breeding decisions.
The Decision Checklist is a practical tool developed by the CGIAR Gender and Breeding Initiative to help breeding programs become more gender-responsive, by outlining the different stages of the breeding cycle where critical decisions need to be made in order to address the priorities, needs and constraints experienced by women.
Purpose of the webinar
The webinar will present the structure of the tool as it reflects on the different stages of the breeding cycle. It will also provide some practical examples and insights on the use of the checklist in a specific breeding program. Participants will be able to discuss and interact with some developers and users of the tool to learn more of the potential contribution of the tool to specific breeding programs.
Speakers
Graham Thiele
Program Director, CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and BananasGraham Thiele, PhD, Director, CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers, and Bananas (RTB). Graham is a social scientist and expert in targeting, priority setting, and impact and adoption studies of new agricultural technologies. He spent 17 years with the International Potato Center (CIP), most recently as the Leader for Social and Health Sciences. Graham has worked in Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Tanzania, Kenya, Benin, Rwanda, Indonesia, and the Philippines. He helped develop, implement, and assess several, novel participatory methodologies designed to link farmers with markets, inform research agendas, and promote innovation in policies, products, and technology uptake. Graham holds a PhD in Social Anthropology and an MSc in Agricultural Economics.
Jacqueline Ashby
Gender expert and International consultantJacqueline Ashby is a development sociologist, researcher and teacher with international development experience in organizational change, technology development and poverty reduction in agriculture and food systems. She has worked as a researcher and in senior management in the CGIAR at the international Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), the International Potato Research Center (CIP) and as senior adviser for research on gender at the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) System Office until retirement in 2017. Her special interest is in participatory research and citizen science in agricultural R&D and she contributed seminal work to the application of farmer participatory research for use in plant breeding. She has also advised widely on gender mainstreaming. Dr. Ashby received her PhD from Cornell University and has served as a Board of Trustee member for several international research organizations.
Pricilla Marimo
CGIAR Gender Postdoctoral Fellow, Bioversity InternationalPricilla Marimo is a CGIAR gender postdoctoral fellow based at the Bioversity International office in Kampala, Uganda. Prior to joining Bioversity International, Pricilla worked as a Research Manager at the Center for the Study of Development Economics at Northwestern University, USA. She was also a Research Fellow at The African Centre for Gender – United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and is a recipient of the American Association of University Women (AAUW) International fellowship. Pricilla holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Exeter (UK), an MSc in Agricultural and Applied Economics from Virginia Tech (USA) and a BSc in Agricultural Economics from the University of Zimbabwe.
Robooni Tumuhimbise
Senior Banana Breeder, National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO) in UgandaDr. Robooni Tumuhimbise is a Senior Banana Breeder at the National Agricultural Research Organization (NARO) in Uganda. His agricultural research experience spans over 10 years, and his interest is in the development and promotion of farmer-acceptable, high-yielding banana varieties, with resistance to pests and diseases. Robooni has led a team that released four high-yielding cooking banana varieties improved for resistance to black Sigatoka, weevils and nematodes. Prior to joining NARO, Robooni worked as the General Safety Inspector in charge of agricultural inspections in the Department of Occupational Safety and Health, Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development, Uganda. He also worked as an Agronomist/Extension Officer at the Swedish Co-Operative Centre -VI Agroforestry, Uganda. Robooni holds a PhD in Plant Breeding from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa; an MSc Crop Science–Agronomy and a BSc from Makerere University, Uganda.