We are pleased to announce the launch of a new website for the CGIAR Gender and Breeding Initiative.

The Initiative brings together plant and animal breeders and social scientists to develop a strategy for gender-responsive breeding with supporting methods, tools and practices. The Initiative includes experts from across CGIAR centers and Research Programs, is coordinated by the CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Bananas and the International Potato Center, and is supported by CGIAR Funders.

For plant and animal breeders to meet users’ needs, they need to understand the priorities that women and men assign to genetically determined traits – such as taste, color, size and shape. Many CGIAR breeding programs understand that if they overlook traits important to women users, this can aggravate household food insecurity and poverty. However, breeding programs still don’t have enough practical methods and tools to help them decide how to be more gender responsive and consider gender differences in breeding schemes.

The Initiative has been launched to help tackle this knowledge gap, which is urgent if CGIAR Research Programs are to achieve their planned targets for gender equality.

The Initiative is working to:

  • Increase the development impact of breeding by recommending practical ways to improve gender-responsiveness
  • Develop evidence-based methods and tools for gender responsive targeting, implementation of breeding activities and linkage with variety dissemination
  • Support a community of practice for active sharing and development of methods and tools

Webinar

On 26 July 2017 from 2:00pm – 3:00pm CET, the Initiative will host a webinar on ‘Product profiling and gender in cassava breeding: An integrated approach’.

The webinar will examine the integrated approach taken by the Next Generation Cassava Breeding (NEXTGEN Cassava) project to conduct cassava trait preference and gender profiling in Nigeria. The session will include presentations from two gender experts involved in the project followed by a moderated Q&A with the audience.

Interested participants should register now to attend the upcoming session.