Strengthening gender capacities for organizational effectiveness

In 2015, the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) carried out a gender capacity assessment of their partners in Ethiopia. The evaluation revealed low or lack of gender capacities among key CGIAR Research Program on Livestock and Fish partners as one of the bottlenecks in the development of livestock value chains that equitably benefit women and men.

Following the survey, ILRI and ICARDA initiated a process of enhancing the partners’ capacities in gender analysis and strategic planning, gender responsive programming, budgeting and implementation, as well as knowledge management and gender responsive monitoring and evaluation. With support from the Dutch consultancy firm Transition International, ILRI and ICARDA gender researchers produced a tailor-made gender capacity development guide which applies adult learning techniques.

The capacity development process used a combination of training workshops, coaching and mentoring, experimental learning (feedback loops), systematization and experience exchange. This video highlights some of the results from the three-year initiative (2015-17) by the two institutes in strengthening gender capacities of local partners in Ethiopia.

Read related news stories:

Empowering researchers to undertake gender responsive agricultural research in Ethiopia

Gendered perspectives on smallholder cattle production and health management in Tanzania

Ethiopia livestock value chain development partners trained on gender capacity development