Women Move In But Not Up

Between 60 and 80% of Africa's food is produced by women, yet only 5% of agricultural extension and 10% or rural credit reaches them. Photo: Mike Goldwater, CGIAR G&D Program.

Women farmers play a vital role in African agriculture, producing as much as 80% of the continent’s food. However, they receive only 5% of agricultural extension training and 10% of rural credit. Additional pressures from high food prices and adverse effects of climate change, such as prolonged droughts and water scarcity, increasingly threaten their livelihoods. To better address their priorities and challenges, and tap into their full potential to boost Africa’s agricultural development, there is an urgent need to strengthen the voice of African women in the agricultural sciences. Women researchers, professors and senior managers offer different insights and perspectives that would help research institutes more effectively address the unique and pressing challenges that confront Africa’s farmers.

Gender-disaggregated data on science capacity in the region are scarce and often lack sufficient detail. Further, datasets are not always comparable because of their differing methodologies or coverage, or useful because of their focus on science and technology in general rather than specifically on the agricultural sciences.

To address this information gap, the Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI) initiative of the International Food Policy Research Institute and the CGIAR Gender & Diversity Program conducted a major benchmarking survey in 2007 and 2008, covering 125 agencies engaged in agricultural research and higher education in 15 sub-Saharan African countries.

This study was done as part of the African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD) initiative of the Gender & Diversity Program. AWARD offers 2-year fellowships to fast-track the careers of talented African women scientists. This survey was the first study of its kind to present detailed human resource data on African women’s participation in the agricultural sciences, providing AWARD with essential baseline data.

The study found that the share of female professional staff in agricultural research and higher education increased from 18% in 2000/01 to 24% in 2007/08. This increase occurred across all degree levels — bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral — but was most pronounced at the MSc level, mostly due to declining numbers of male professional staff at that level. In light of the decline in MSc-qualified male staff, it is a particular concern that two thirds of the total capacity increase, both female and male, comprised staff acquiring BSc degrees. These two observations indicate an overall decline in the qualifications of agricultural research and higher education staff in some sub-Saharan African countries.

More women need to move in and move up in agricultural research to help address the needs of women farmers. Photo: Mike Goldwater, CGIAR G&D Program.

The growing shares of professional women employed in agriculture and female students enrolled in agricultural sciences indicate that the gender gap in African agricultural sciences may be narrowing, at least in southern Africa. This trend is not reflected in other regions of the continent. Female participation in agricultural research and higher education was particularly low in Ethiopia and a number of Francophone countries in West Africa, including Togo, Niger and Burkina Faso.

As illustrated in Figure 1 below, the pipeline of female talent in agricultural research and development in sub-Saharan Africa continues to be leaky, with the proportion of women declining at the higher rungs of the career ladder. Only 14% of the management positions were held by women (17% in the 10 countries covered by the figure), which is considerably lower than the share of female professional staff employed in the agricultural sciences and education overall.

A summary brief of the study is available at http://www.asti.cgiar.org/pdf/ASTI-AWARD-brief.pdf and the full report is forthcoming on the ASTI website at www.asti.cgiar.org. The online ASTI Data Tool is an exciting new feature that improves data downloads and enables map-driven presentation of datasets. For more information on AWARD or the Gender & Diversity Program, visit http://fellowsupdate.wordpress.com and www.genderdiversity.cgiar.org.

FIGURE 1. Tertiary students and professional staff in agricultural science in 2007/08, by gender

M = management, including directors, deans and department heads; PS/TS = professional and technical support staff; SPL = scientists, assistant professors and senior lecturers not in management positions.
Note: Burkina Faso, Burundi, Ethiopia, Niger and Togo were excluded because data on student enrollment and graduation were either unavailable or incomplete.
Source: ASTI and Gender & Diversity Program Survey responses.