1. Rethinking Impact: Workshop Briefs No.1, 2 and 3

Rethinking Impact Workshop Key Issues

Six key issues emerged from the Rethinking Impact Workshop (RIW): Understanding the complexity of poverty and change held in Cali, Colombia, March 26–28, 2008. The workshop discussed (1) how agricultural and natural-resources research can be more effective in contributing to solutions for poverty alleviation and improving gender, social inclusion and equity; (2) how its impact can be assessed; and (3) how such research and impact assessment can be brought into the mainstream.

2. African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD) Fellowships

THE GENDER & DIVERSITY program invites applications for the first round of fellowships under the AWARD Program. The fellowship will support African agricultural women scientists from Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia with PhD degrees, including those in post-doctoral positions, and women scientists with MA/MSc/MPhil/BA/BSc degrees.

More information:
http://www.genderdiversity.cgiar.org/resource/award.asp

3. Farmers' Conference on Participatory Plant Breeding

Some 53 farmers from six countries
exchanged experiences and knowledge
through story telling during the Farmers'
Conference held at ICARDA Headquarters
in Aleppo, 4-8 May. The conference was
supported by CGIAR’s Knowledge Sharing
Project of ICT-KM.

Farmers from Syria, Algeria, Iran,
Jordan, Egypt and Eritrea attended the firstFarmer's Conference organized by the
Barley Research Program of the BIGM.

Read more:
http://www.prgaprogram.org/Newsletter/Newsletter%202008/June/images/
/the%20week%20at%20ICARDA%20Week1021.pdf

4. Gender and Climate Change: Mapping the Linkages - A Scoping Study on Knowledge and Gaps

The issue of climate change is not new, but its take-up as a key development concern is a fairly recent departure. Even more recent is the integration of a gender-sensitive perspective in climate change research and responses. This draft report, prepared for the UK Department for International Development (DFID), seeks to make the most of the available resources, drawing out useful insights to inform and strengthen future research on and interventions into gender and climate change.

5. Global Monitoring Report 2008: MDGs and the Environment: Agenda for Inclusive and Sustainable Development

Global Monitoring Report 2008, the fifth in an annual series, is essential reading for those who wish to follow the global development agenda and debate in 2008. The year marks the midpoint toward the 2015 deadline for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It is also an important year to work toward a consensus on how the world is going to respond to the challenge of climate change, building on the foundation laid at the Bali climate change conference in December 2007. T

6. Premier Calls for Gender Education

Higher institutions of learning should integrate gender into their statistics courses, the Prime Minister, Prof. Apolo Nsibambi, has said.

"There is need to engender statistics across all sectors. This is the only way that gender inequalities can be identified and their elimination expedited," he said, in a speech read by the gender state minister Rukia Nakadama.

7. Women Ideal Shea Butter Producers

"Wherever I went, they laughed at me and called me 'Habiba the empty mouth.' I was always embarrassed," says 45-year-old Habiba Alhassan. "I could not afford to smile; I could not open my mouth in public, when I took photographs I had to close my mouth so that I wouldn't look ugly."