Empowering women in Africa
Professor Sheila Okoth FSB explains how female scientists in Africa are overcoming the challenges of a male dominated scientific community to undertake lifesaving research
Women produce, process and market the majority of Africa’s food. But only one in four African agricultural researchers are women and only 14% hold leadership positions in agricultural research institutions.
There are many contributing factors as to why. Female secondary school students often drop science subjects, which are perceived to be difficult, and societal expectations that African women remain at home make travelling abroad for further scientific studies challenging. Also, most government decisionmaking positions are occupied by men. Women miss out on key opportunities, including training and participation in prioritising institutional and national development issues.
I faced such problems as a female researcher in Kenya, but my life changed when I won a two-year career-development fellowship from African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD) in 2008. Launched with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the United States Agency for International Development, the mentoring programme helped me to design a career ‘road map’ to achieving my professional goals. A proposalwriting course and sponsorship for advanced science training at the University of Stellenbosch enabled me to perfect my research, write winning, collaborative research proposals and publish in international journals.
The skills obtained from the fellowship’s leadership and management course for women enhanced my capacity to overcome obstacles in the male-dominated scientific community. Today, I am sharing my knowledge and skills with others. In addition to mentoring university students and local farmers, I established the university’s first mycotoxin laboratory to answer farmers’ questions, train postgraduates and transfer skills to scientists through annual national courses. These achievements helped earn my promotion to Associate Professor in February 2011.
In Kenya, lethal outbreaks of aflatoxicosis (poisoning by aflatoxin) have been reported yearly since 1981 and the effects of chronic exposure cannot be ignored. Aflatoxin is a naturally occurring carcinogenic by-product of the fungi that colonise certain crops, including maize, the main dietary staple of Kenyans. My research focuses on understanding the distribution of toxigenic fungi in soil and susceptible plants, and humans’ exposure levels to the toxins through food and feed. Working with smallholder farmers in two agroecological zones, I have determined toxigenic and atoxigenic strains of Aspergillus and Fusarium isolates from soil and maize kernels, and established their distribution patterns to determine appropriate intervention methods acceptable to farmers.
African women farmers and agricultural scientists are already making essential contributions to agriculture and we can do much more to help solve hunger – but we must be fully engaged.
Sheila Okoth FSB is an Associate Professor of Botany at the University of Nairobi’s School of Biological Sciences.
Successful Women, Successful Science
Womenproduce the majority of Africa’s food but only one in four African agricultural researchers are female.
Poultry disease research in Nairobi.
AWARD Fellow Sheila Ommeh, a poultry researcher at the International Livestock Research Institute, Nairobi, Kenya, hopes to introduce a disease-resistant chicken that can be easily produced by women farmers.
Fast-tracking the careers of African women scientists delivering pro-poor agricultural research
AWARD is a professional development program that strengthens the research and leadership skills of African women in agricultural science, empowering them to contribute more effectively to poverty alleviation and food security in sub-Saharan Africa. AWARD Fellows benefit from two-year fellowships focused on establishing mentoring partnerships, building science skills, and developing leadership capacity. Following a highly competitive process, the fellowships are awarded on the basis of intellectual merit, leadership capacity, and the potential of the scientist’s research to improve the daily lives of smallholder farmers, especially women. Between 2008 and 2011, AWARD received applications from 2,200 women for a total of 250 available fellowships. On average, only the top nine percent of applicants are selected each year.
PROGRAM HISTORY Established in 2008, AWARD is a project of the Gender & Diversity Program of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). It was launched following a successful three-year pilot program in East Africa, with support from the Rockefeller Foundation from 2005-2008.
AWARD offers two-year fellowships focused on fostering mentoring partnerships, building science skills and developing leadership capacity. African women working in agricultural research for development from Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia, who have completed a bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral degree in selected disciplines, are eligible. Selection criteria include intellectual merit, leadership capacity and the potential of the scientist’s research to improve the daily lives of smallholder farmers, especially women. More than 2,000 female scientists from 450 institutions have applied for one of the 250 fellowships offered to date.
The majority of those who produce, process, and market Africa’s food are women, but only one in four agricultural researchers is female.
(AWARD/ASTI 2009)
Vol 59 No 2 / the biologist / 9
