Report Of The First External Review Of The Systemwide Program On Participatory Research And Gender Analysis Prga

Over the past decade, interest in gender equality and women’s empowerment has grown rapidly, creating a unique opportunity to institutionalize gender research within agricultural research for development. This book, edited by researchers from the CGIAR Gender Platform, reviews and reflects on the growing body of evidence from gender research. It marks a shift a way from a traditional focus on how gender analysis can contribute to improved productivity, flipping the question to ask, How does agricultural and environmental research and development contribute to gender equality and women’s empowerment? Chapters synthesize the wide range of CGIAR and other research in this area, covering breeding research and seed systems, value chain participation, nutrition-sensitive agriculture, natural resources, climate adaptation and mitigation, the “feminization” of agriculture, women’s role in agricultural research, and emerging gender transformative approaches.

This book casts a light on the daily struggles and achievements of ‘gender experts’ working in environment and development organisations, where they are charged with advancing gender equality and social equity and aligning this with visions of sustainable development. Developed through a series of conversations convened by the book’s editors with leading practitioners from research, advocacy and donor organisations, this text explores the ways gender professionals – specialists and experts, researchers, organizational focal points – deal with personal, power-laden realities associated with navigating gender in everyday practice. In turn, wider questions of epistemology and hierarchies of situated knowledges are examined, where gender analysis is brought into fields defined as largely techno-scientific, positivist and managerialist. Drawing on insights from feminist political ecology and feminist science, technology and society studies, the authors and their collaborators reveal and reflect upon strategies that serve to mute epistemological boundaries and enable small changes to be carved out that on occasions open up promising and alternative pathways for an equitable future. This book will be of great relevance to scholars and practitioners with an interest in environment and development, science and technology, and gender and women’s studies more broadly. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781351175180, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Agricultural development research aims to generate new knowledge or to retrieve and apply existing forms of knowledge in ways that can be used to improve the welfare of people who are living in poverty or are otherwise excluded, for instance by gender-based discrimination. Its effective application therefore requires ongoing dialogue with and the strong engagement of men and women from poor marginal farming communities. This book discusses opportunities afforded by effective knowledge pathways linking researchers and farmers, underpinned by participatory research and gender analysis. It sets out practices and debates in gender-sensitive participatory research and technology development, concentrating on the empirical issues of implementation, impact assessment, and institutionalisation of approaches for the wider development and research community. It includes six full-length chapters and eight brief practical notes and is enhanced by an annotated resources list of relevant publications, organisations, and websites adding to the portfolio of approaches and tools discussed by the contributors. Most of the 33 contributing authors work in the specialised agencies that form part of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). This book was published as a special issue of Development in Practice.

Participatory Action Research (PAR) introduces a method that is ideal for researchers who are committed to co-developing research programs with people rather than for people. The book provides a history of this technique, its various strands, and the underlying tenets that guide most projects. It then draws on two PAR projects that highlight three integral dimensions: the meaning of participation; the way action manifests itself; and the strategies for gathering, analyzing, and disseminating information. Author Alice McIntyre describes the various ways in which PAR is carried out depending on, for example, the issue under investigation, the site of the project, the project participants, people′s access to resources, and other related issues. Intended Audience: This resource is an ideal supplement for graduate courses PAR, qualitative research, and various types of action-based research.