GREAT  Inception  Meeting

4-­‐5th February  2016  

Results  of  the  July  2015  GREAT  Pilot  Week  1  Course  

…  towards  equipping  Gender  responsive  researchers  for  Agricultural  transformation

GREAT  Pilot

• 26th July-­‐ 1st August  2015,  on  Makerere campus

• Core  curriculum• Developed by  Deborah  Rubin• Input from  Makerere faculty  (Margaret  Mangheni,  Richard  Miiro,  Henry  Manyire,  May  Sengendo,  Consolata Kabonesa),  Cornell  faculty  (Hale  Tufan),  AWARD  trainers  (Monica  Kapiriri,  Maria  Nassuna Musoke)

• Guest  lecturers  • Holger  Kirscht (former  IITA)  on  gender-­‐responsive  impact  pathways• Jonathan  Ngobi Associates  Research,  Uganda,  on  testing  of  the  Women’s  Empowerment  in  Agriculture  Index  (WEAI)  in  Uganda  

Six  pilot  participant  teams

Team  1:

• Topic: Commercialization  of  Clean  Cassava  Planting  Material  Delivery  System  in  Uganda

• Institution:  National  Crops  Resources  Research  Institute  (NaCRRI),  Uganda

Team  2:

• Topic: Improving  Food  Security  through  Participatory  Development  of  Adaptable  and  Farmer-­‐Preferred   Cowpea  Varieties  in  Uganda

• Institution:  Makerere  University,  Uganda

Six  pilot  participant  teams

Team  3:

• Topic: Social  Differences  and  Genetic  Analysis  of  Cassava  Trait  Preferences  of  Smallholder  Farmers  in  Uganda  

• Institution:  National  Crops  Resources  Research  Institute  (NaCRRI),  Uganda

Team  4:

• Topic:  Effect  of  Farming  System  Practices  on  Livelihood  of  Small  Holder  Farmers  in  South  Western  Highlands  Agro-­‐Ecological  Zone  (SWHAEZ)

• Institution:  Kachwekano Zonal  Agricultural  Research  and  Development  Institute  (KAZARDI),  Uganda

Six  pilot  participant  teams

Team  5:

• Topic:Disease  Diagnostics  for  Sustainable  Cassava  Productivity  in  Africa

• Institution:  Mikocheni Agricultural  Research  Institute  (MARI),  Tanzania

Team  6:

• Topic: Farmer  Decision  Making  Strategies  for  Improved  Soil  Fertility  Management  in  Maize-­‐Bean  Production  Systems

• Institution:  Makerere  University,  Uganda

Learning  Objectives

Equip  participants  with  knowledge  and  skills  on:

• The  concept  of  gender  and  its  value  in  agricultural  research• Gender  analysis  • Collection  and  analysis  of  sex  disaggregated  data  • Application  of  gender  on  the  discovery,  implementation,  and  evaluation  phases  of  research  

• Integration  of  gender  while  working  in  multi/interdisciplinary  research  teams

Sessions  covered

• What  constitutes  valid  data?• Gender  and  agriculture• Gender  analysis  frameworks• Gender  dimensions  of  agricultural  value  chains  • What  is  gender  responsive  research?  • Designing  gender-­‐responsive  research  questions• Gender  and  research  impact  pathway• Gender-­‐based  constraints

• Qualitative  research  methods• Quantitative  research  methods• Interview  principles• Introduction  to  WEAI• Communicating  with  communities  and  research  ethics

Pilot  activities

• Lecturettes• Video  and  photograph  critique  in  plenary• Role-­‐play  exercises• Group  reflection,  discussion,  and  worksheet  completion

• Team  formulation  of  gender-­‐responsive  research                                                questions,  and  field  tools

• Panel  discussions• Participant  presentations

Pilot  activities

Team  formulation  of  gender-­‐responsive  research  questions,  and  field  tools

Group  hands-­‐on  field  data  collection

What  pilot  participants  say

• “In  the  beginning,  we  were  just  interviewing  men,  but  we  did  not  involve  women  in  the  process.  When  we  went  to  interview  a  group  of  farmers,  women  would  be  there,  but  we  weren’t  focusing  on  them.  We  weren’t  seeking  them  out  to  involve  them  in  the  process. Now  we  will  think  about  it  like  this—involving  them  in  the  process.  This  is  GREAT.”

-­‐Dr.  Zuberi  Seguni,  a  researcher  at  the  MikocheniAgricultural  Research  Institute  (MARI)  in  Tanzania,  who  has  more  than  25  years  of  experience  in  his  field  and  who  attended  the  GREAT  pilot  course  with  a  group  of  MARI  researchers  

Mentoring

• As  teams  went  to  the  field,  each  team  paired  with  a  mentor

• Pilot  Mentors:• May  Sengendo (SWGS)• KayteMeola (CIAT)• Holger  Kirscht (formerly  IITA)• Adeline  Muheebwa (formerly  ASARECA)• Richard  Miiro (CAES)• Henry  Manyire (SWGS)• Hale  Tufan (Cornell)

Week  1  Evaluation:  What  worked

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How  would  you  rate  the  design  of  the  week  1  modules   in  terms  of  overall  content?

How  would  you  rate  the  way  the  modules  flowed  from  one  topic  to  another?

How  would  you  rate  the  delivery  approaches  used?

How  satisfied  are  you  with  the  duration  of  the  course?

Soft  Skills  (Mindset  Change)  and  Hard  Skills  (Technical  Application)

Week  1  Evaluation:  What  didn’t  work

Needed  more  attention  to  qualitative  data  collection

Q:  For  what  skills  do  you  feel  you  still  need  further  support?  Please  specify  the  actual  form  of  support  you  feel  you  still  need.

Top  response:  Qualitative  data  collection  and  analysis

Week  1  Evaluation:  What  didn’t  workNeeded  more  time!

Q:  Further  comments  on  workshop  process  design  (delivery)• “The  time  was  not  enough  to  deliver  some  sessions  properly/effectively”

• “The  content  was  heavy  and  participants  were  strained  to  absorb  the  content  within  one  week.”

Week  1  Evaluation:  What  didn’t  work

The  course  should  be  residential  (facilitators  agree)

• Eliminate  commuting  delays  and  outside  distractions  

• Extend  daily  schedule  for  more  instruction  time

• Create  additional  networking  opportunities  outside  of  instruction

Provide  the  lecture  notes  each  evening  for  review

Self-­‐assessment:  Facilitator  debrief

• Must  be  clearer  with  participants  on  structure  and  content  of  the  two  modulesE.g.,  data  collection  taught  in  week  1  and  data  analysis  in  week  2

• Curriculum  design  workshops  needed  3-­‐5  months  before  week  1  of  each  theme  to  allow  adequate  time  to  reviseCombine  these  with  annual  meetings  and  other  events  for  cost  effectiveness

• Core  training  team  should  be  at  the  training  throughout  to  observe  and  improve  the  flow  and  debrief  to  make  the  next  day  stronger

• Need  a  systematic  ways  to  assess  if  facilitators  have  met  the  objective  of  each  activity

Pilot  mid-­‐term  survey

• Administered  January  2016,  online  Qualtrics survey

• Not  all  teams  responded  (4/6),  some  amount  of  “drop-­‐out”

• Multiple  choice  and  open-­‐ended  questions  to  cover  learning,  application,  field  work  status,  interactions  with  mentors,  team  work,  interaction  with  institute  leadership,  challenges,  use  of  course  website  etc.  

• “It  was  difficult  for  biophysical  scientists  to  develop  and  adapt  tools  related  to  social  research”

• “Yes.  We  encountered  challenges  in  designing  questions  to  collect  gender  data.  We  had  to  first  understand  intra-­‐household  dynamics.  This  required  extensive  reading  of  relevant  papers  which  could  not  easily  be  accessed.”

• “Some  of  the  questions  were  not  properly  formulated.  For  example  when  respondents  were  given  options  to  tick  rather  [than]  letting  them  rank  options,  respondents  may  tick  against  all  give  options  making  analysis  difficult.  Gender  questions  were  in  some  cases  not  explicit  for  women  or  men  respondents.  Corrections  were  made.”

Pilot  mid-­‐term  survey:  Challenges

Pilot  mid-­‐term  survey:  Tools

• Tool  design:  all  teams  have  partially  or  fully  completed

• Used:  Text  Response

House  hold  QuestionaireKey  informant  GuideFocused  Group  Discussion   (FGD)  guide

A  structured  questionnaire   to  collect  both  qualitative  and  quantitative  data

1.  House  hold  questionnaire2.  Check  list  questions   for  key  informats  (District  extesion  officer,  trader,  processor,   group)

Questionnaire   and  checklist

1.Questionnaire   for  household   surveys   for  women  and  men  cassava  farmers,  2.  Checklist   for  Key  informants   eg  extension,   processor3.  Group  interview  with  male/female  farmers,  processors,   traders  

key  informant  interviewsFocus  group  discussionQuestionnaires

Pilot  mid-­‐term  survey:  Field  application• Most  (67%)  had  not  started!

• Challenges:• “Difficulty  in  identifying  the  respondents  since  it  was  a  pretest”• “After  designing  the  tool  we  got  stuck  due  to  lack  of  funds/  facilitation  to  travel  [to]  the  identified  sites”

• “Language  barrier  was  a  big  challenge.  However,  with  the  help  of  translators  the  job  was  accomplished”.

• “Some  of  the  household  heads  and  key  people  were  missing  at  the  time  of  the  visit”• “Finding  female  respondents  was  not  easy  as  most  of  the  time  they  were  in  the  garden  so  we  needed  to  make  appointments  with  their  leaders  ahead  of  time  and  also  be  on  time  to  meet  them  too.”

Pilot  mid-­‐term  survey:  Field  application

• Challenges:• Budget  shortfalls• “After  designing  the  tool  we  got  stuck  due  to  lack  of  funds/  facilitation  to  travel  [to]  the  identified  sites”• “Since  this  activity  was  not  earlier  planned,  securing  specific  funding  requires  specific  negotiations.”• “The  biggest  challenge  was  that  at  that/this  point  in  time  there  is  a  shortage  of  funds  and  the  activity  was  not  budgeted  for  in  the  financial  year  2015/2016.So  our  requests  ended  up  in  trays.”

Emerging  from  the  field  application

• Realized  need  for  how  to  analyze  the  data  in  a  qualitative  manner

Pilot  mid-­‐term  survey:  Engaging  leadership• How  participants  interacted  with  institute  leadership  upon  return:

• “We  explained  by  writing  a  detailed  report  showing  the  summary  of  what  we  covered  and  the  role  of  the  gender  approach  to  all  research  and  development  interventions  at  station  and  within  the  community.  The  institution  leadership,  through  the  gender  head,  welcomed  the  initiative.  However  finance/  funds/  facilitation  was  a  constraint  that  hindered  us  from  moving  ahead  with  data  collection.”    

• “Our  Officer  in  charge  with  a  [Gates  Foundation]  cassava  project  was  already  aware  of  the  project’s  current  requirement  for  gender  responsive/inclusive  research.  He  was  supportive  in  agreeing  to  allocate  funds  for  our  planned  survey  in  an  area  where  active  field  research  activities  are  undertaken  for  cassava  diseases.  Both  the  rationale  for  the  Uganda  training  and  course  content  were  discussed  with  him.”

• All  teams  had  been  in  contact  with  their  designated  mentor

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20.  How  many  times  has  your  team  interacted  with  your  mentor?

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Phone Skype Email Face   to  face Other  (Please  specify.)

19.  How  has  your  team  interacted  with  your  mentor?   (Select  all  that  apply.)

Pilot  mid-­‐term  survey:  Mentoring

• All  teams  found  interaction  with  mentor  useful

• Why?• “She  was  able  to  go  through  our  tools and  make  sure  we  put  them  into  perspective  as  far  as  gender  studies  are  concerned”• “We  have  always  discussed  how  to  [overcome]  the  financial  challenges.”• “He  has  been  very  helpful  and  cooperative,  corrected  our  work,  guided  us,  and  provided  quick  response  to  our  mails,  etc.”  • “He  has  been  able  to  review  questionnaires and  provided  very  useful  comments  that  [enabled]  us  [to]  improve  the  focus  of  our  gender-­‐oriented  questions.”• “Our  mentor  guided  us  on  including  other  key  questions  we  had  not  considered.  She  has  give  us  advice  on  data  handling.”

Pilot  mid-­‐term  survey:  Mentoring

• 80%  of  respondents  had  visited    website  after  the  course

• 83%  found  the  material  useful,  and  83%  found  website  easy  to  use

Pilot  mid-­‐term  survey:  Course  website

Pilot  mid-­‐term  survey:  Overall  value  of  GREAT  training

• All  respondents  found  experience  valuable

• Why?• “For  [the]  first  time  we  realize  that  gender  issues—specifically  women  involvement  in  research—was  in  the  past  just  presumed  and  not  deliberately  inbuilt  in  the  research  design  and  impact  thereafter.  This  is  because  we  did  not  have  tools  to  do  it”

• “We  are  practically  learning  how  to  mainstream  gender  in  research”

Pilot  mid-­‐term  survey:  Overall  value  of  GREAT  training

• All  respondents  found  experience  valuable

• Why?• “This  course  will  help  us  to  include  youth,  women,  and  men,  allowing  us  to  get  our  technologies  to  the  right  people  at  the  right  time”

• “I  have  learnt  to  integrate  gender  in  all  my  research  work.  I  can  also  help  my  colleagues  to  include  gender  in  all  their  activities”

Summary

• Course  was  minimally  funded,  but  team  made  most  of  experience

• Brought  GREAT  training  team  together

• Week  1  was  largely  successful,  we  needed  more  time  and  depth  in  certain  topics

• Field  work  is  a  challenge,  need  more  support  to  teams

• More  online  interaction  needs  to  be  built

• We  have  succeeded  in  changing  perceptions  and  practice  of  course  participants!

Thank  you!