By Sam Otieno
African Women Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD) signed a new US1 million dollar partnership with Agropolis Foundation to support the implementation of the AWARD Pan African fellowship initiative in Kenya.
The aim of the newly launched Pan African Program is to maximize the interactions between female scientists from Francophone, Anglophone Africa and also to expand to include women scientists from the Pacific, Southeast, Asia, and Europe.
The eligible Francophone countries for the AWARD pan-African fellowship include: Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cote d’Ivoire, Madagascar, Mali, Senegal and Togo
According to Journal of Gender, Agriculture and Food Security published last year, female researchers offer different perceptions from their male counterparts, and their input provides an important view in addressing the unique and pressing challenges of female farmers, hence it is it is important that agricultural research agencies and governments include them.
According to a statement released by AWARD, the fellowship is structured to offer career-development opportunities to Africa’s leading women agricultural scientists to ensure that a growing cohort of capable, confident and influential African women scientists is available to lead critical advances and innovations for the continent’s agricultural sector
Full-time female researchers in Francophone Africa low numbers of female scientists in the continent with less than 20 percent. Further, very few Francophone African women are in advanced degree programs, weakening the pipeline to agricultural research positions. Even when they do earn advanced degrees, they tend to do so later in life and hence have only 15 years of services community before retirement.
The fellowship will bring together fellows, mentors and fellow’s menses from Francophone, Anglophone and also women scientists who have been sponsored by their institutions, which include the International Livestock Research Institute the Pacific Community and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research to building science skills and developing leadership capacity.
