Rhiannon Pyburn and Katrine Danielsen, gender specialists from KIT at the recent ‘feeding innovation’ workshop in Vietnam

A team from the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) has been commissioned to support the program integrate gender in its technical flagships and value chains.

The team – Anouka van Eerdewijk, Katrine Danielsen and Rhiannon Pyburn -startedin July and have since been interacting with staff across the program.

The starting point is the existing gender strategy that combines strategic and integrated gender research, and identifies gender accommodative and gender transformative approaches.

The challenge now is considered to be to further integrate gender into the programming and implementation of the program. This concerns specifically the integration of gender in the technical flagships and the country-level value chains. This calls for technical support in both the identification and prioritization of research needs, as well as practical and applied coaching and support in research implementation. The coaching and support in research implementation are meant to also build the capacity of existing and new staff in appreciating gender, identifying gender issues in the technical work and undertaking gender research. The integration of gender in the technical flagships will be complementary with the strategic gender research mostly undertaken by the gender team.

The KIT support takes the form of a ‘trajectory on gender integration’ that combines support to the identification and conceptualization of priority research for development (R4D), tailor-made coaching of its implementation, and knowledge building and documentation.

The trajectory has been designed in two phases, Phase A in 2014 and Phase B in 2015. Phase A concerns support to identifying key entry-points for gender integration in the five Livestock and Fish flagships and in selected value chains. The first step is the participation of KIT advisors in a series of exploration meetings and selected planning meetings with scientists. On the basis of these meetings option papers will be developed by the KIT team that outline the entry points for gender integration in the flagships and in four country-level value chains. The option papers will provide the basis for supporting program staff in preparing research proposals for integrating gender in their research areas.

Phase B concerns support to the implementation of gender integration into the flagships and value chains through the proposals elaborated and funded in Phase A. The entire trajectory builds on and deepens currently ongoing initiatives to integrate gender in the program and is aligned with the CGIAR-wide gender working group and the gender scientists.