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CORAF's Executive Director would like to extend his warm greetings to all women employees of CORAF and West and Central Africa, on the occasion of International Women's Day 2018. In his statement, Dr. Abdou Tenkouano, highlights CORAF's efforts on behalf of women and states that gender issues are essential to the institution's long-term strategy to achieve food and nutrition security. Read more...

I just went back and looked at CORAF's new Strategic Plan 2018-2027. In my content analysis of the document, I noticed that the terms women and gender are used 49 times. That's up by 30 more mentions, compared to the previous strategy, written about ten years ago. Now, when you look at our projects, our ambition is even higher. For example, in the new West African Agricultural Transformation Program(WAATP), currently under design, we are targeting the inclusion of 50 percent women in all project interventions.

What does this mean for CORAF and our determination to tackle some of West and Central Africa's intractable challenges? In a way, CORAF recognizes that while poverty is a major challenge for the countries and communities of our region, rural poverty is first and foremost female - and we cannot afford to provide research and development solutions that are insensitive to this harsh and unacceptable reality.

As the international community celebrates women, Africa's largest sub-regional research organization sees this as an opportunity to highlight the many gender-sensitive technologies and innovations that, if adopted, can fundamentally transform the lives of millions of women and girls, and generally promote the well-being of our populations.

How did we do it right?

Between 2013 and 2016, CORAF led a multi-donor-funded technology generation and adoption project known as the Multi-Donor Trust Fund (MDTF).

In the project completion report, the rapporteurs found that more women accessed, adopted and used innovative technologies to improve agricultural productivity in West Africa, over the period 2013-2016.

Compared with the 2013 baseline when the MDTF project began, the data show that women's lot improved considerably by the end of the project. Women almost doubled their participation compared to the initial target. Specifically, almost 44,000 women were reached, compared with the original target of 22,000. This represents a 200% increase. Overall, the project reached around 100,000 people in participating countries and communities, against a target of 82,000. "The resulting 123% completion rate, well above the original target, was entirely due to the growing number of women involved in the innovation platforms."

"Women's progress in technology adoption and innovation has been impressive, with women approaching parity with men in these areas," the report concludes.

Women as catalysts for innovation

How can we strengthen those in the fields? That's part of the equation. Empowering women to lead the discoveries, inventions and research of today and tomorrow is perhaps more critical. That's why CORAF has made training the next class of agricultural researchers a central priority. For example, since 2008, three out of every ten researchers trained under the West African Agricultural Productivity Program (WAAPP) have been women. In all, more than 1,000 young researchers have been trained under WAAPP. And many more under our other projects. From our point of view, this is probably one of the only ways to generate research that meets the needs of women and girls in our region.

Gender mainstreaming as a core priority

In 2010, CORAF adopted a gender policy to ensure that women's issues are systematically integrated into our activities. Since the adoption of the plan in 2010, considerable progress has been made in addressing the concerns of women and girls in accessing, adopting and using agricultural technologies and innovations in West and Central Africa.

Innovation platform approach attracts more women

In 2008, CORAF, through WAAPP, created innovation platforms as part of a wider program to improve food systems in West Africa. These forums serve as spaces for the informal exchange, learning, sharing and adoption of agricultural technologies, innovations and best practices among key players in the food chain in a given community. Most of the women participating in these platforms have acquired new knowledge and the know-how to use certain technologies or launch start-ups through these spaces. This also explains why these platforms are essential for approaching more women in the future.

And why should we focus on women?

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), women account for 62% of the active agricultural population in Africa. They play a key role in food production and provide for the needs of their households. However, they have limited access to and control over agricultural technologies and innovations, extension services, education, financial services and rural employment. This situation to some extent compromises efforts to achieve sustainable agricultural growth and food and nutrition security on the continent. There's no denying that, despite all the rhetoric and action, we haven't achieved what we wanted in terms of inclusion and gender equality. Part of this challenge is the lack of education. That's why CORAF focuses on educating young women scientists and empowering communities and individuals to seize opportunities to improve their livelihoods.

In the future, our focus will be on women, and we hope that through some of the technological solutions and innovations we propose, we can collectively reverse the worrying trend of rural and urban poverty, which unfortunately affects women in particular. It's the least we can do to improve the lot of women in West and Central Africa.

Finally, on a personal note, I reiterate our firm commitment to respecting the integrity of women in the workplace. We have seen and heard many stories of harassment of women in workplaces around the world. Harassment in any form is unjustifiable and intolerable. There is no doubt that CORAF is firmly committed to this dynamic of respect.

On behalf of the CORAF staff, I wish you a happy 2018 International Women's Day.