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Partnership with AWARD

On boosting scientific and leadership capacity of African women in agricultural reserach  

Agropolis Fondation is developing partnership with African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD), a project of the CGIAR's Gender & Diversity Program supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), to boost scientific and leadership capacity among African women in agricultural research.

This partnership is expected to result in a number of AWARD Fellows being hosted in research laboratories in Montpellier, and to contribute to AWARD's expansion in Francophone Africa.

 


From L to R: Representatives from
the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,
CGIAR Consortium, Agropolis
Fondation (President and its
Director)and USAID during the Francophone AWARD Seminar
held in June 2011 in Montpellier.
Photo: K. Homer

 

 Feedback from the Seminar Workshop on the expansion of the AWARD Programme in francophone Africa

In Francophone Africa, women perform 47 per cent of the agricultural labor, but only 16 per cent of the agricultural research labor force is female, according to a recent FAO study.

To address that imbalance, Agropolis Fondation and African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD) have forged a new partnership to explore ways to build science and leadership capacity among Francophone African women scientists involved in agricultural research.

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AWARD-Agropolis Fondation Fellow
Bolanle Otegbayo with her French research supervisor in Montpellier
Dr. Olivier Gibert. Photo: K. Homer

 

 

 

 

 

Yen for yams: Nigerian scientist works to improve the king of crops

Dr. Bolanle Otegbayo has a yen for yams. This researcher is determined to help farmers capitalize on "the king of crops" as Dioscorea is known in her native Nigeria, which produces 68 per cent of the world's yam harvest (50 million tonnes). The QualiSud Joint Research Unit hosted by Cirad, one of Agropolis Fondation's research units, is helping her do just that.

Yams are more than a mere tuber to Nigerians, says Otegbayo. "Yams are intimately linked to our economic, social, and cultural life. For instance, a man must give yams as part of a bride's dowry. And no ceremony is complete without a dish of pounded yams. Every farmer grows them," explains Otegbayo, a lecturer at Bowen University in Nigeria, who recently completed a three-month research attachment with QualiSud.

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