Enhancing Female Participation in Agricultural Research and Development: Rationale and Evidence

Enhancing women’s participation in agricultural research in developing countries can be an effective strategy for making agricultural research and development (R&D) systems more gender-aware. This chapter reviews the evidence on the trends in women’s participation in agricultural research with more detailed analysis of Sub-Saharan Africa, for which more detailed information is available. The author makes use of the Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI) initiative, which is one of the few sex-disaggregated data sources on agricultural researchers in developing countries. In developing countries, less than one out of four researchers is a woman, although large differences exist across countries. The share of women employed in agricultural research and development has been increasing in most countries, but their share disproportionately declines on the higher rungs of the career ladder. The chapter summarizes the various general human resource challenges in agricultural R&D that developing countries face, specifically in Sub-Saharan Africa, especially the challenges women face prior to and during their science careers. In addition to reviewing important data, the author makes an argument for why increased participation of women in science is important in the developing world.