WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:13.840 --> 00:00:16.619 So hello, good afternoon. I'm Dr. Maria Elisa Christie. 00:00:17.119 --> 00:00:20.160 I'm director of women and gender in 00:00:20.160 --> 00:00:22.480 international development here at Virginia Tech 00:00:22.480 --> 00:00:25.920 at our center for international research education and development. 00:00:25.920 --> 00:00:30.080 So welcome to our first speaker for our discussion series I think somebody just 00:00:30.080 --> 00:00:32.719 turned another mic for our women and gender development 00:00:32.719 --> 00:00:35.760 discussion series we have a very special speaker 00:00:35.760 --> 00:00:40.640 and in collaboration with CALS college of ag and life sciences 00:00:40.640 --> 00:00:45.680 but I wanted to go over some details first okay so first of all 00:00:45.680 --> 00:00:49.039 well I do want to welcome Dr. Wanjiru Kamau-Rutenberg, 00:00:49.039 --> 00:00:53.280 joining us from Kenya today and Dr. Tom Thompson the 00:00:53.280 --> 00:00:57.199 CALS associate dean and director of the CALS global program will introduce her 00:00:57.199 --> 00:01:00.160 as soon as I finish here. So I'd like to begin today by 00:01:00.160 --> 00:01:03.840 acknowledging that this event is being held on the traditional lands of the 00:01:03.840 --> 00:01:07.439 Tutelo and Monacan people who are the original custodians of this 00:01:07.439 --> 00:01:11.439 land that Virginia Tech is built on. We also want to go ahead and 00:01:11.439 --> 00:01:14.799 announce our second discussion senior speaker we'll have one each month so 00:01:14.799 --> 00:01:18.640 we'll still have February March and April and that will be on 00:01:18.640 --> 00:01:21.759 February 15th. That will be Dr. Claudia Radel, 00:01:21.759 --> 00:01:25.040 associate dean of Quinney college of natural resources at Utah State 00:01:25.040 --> 00:01:29.360 and she'll be speaking about the gender dynamics of conditional cash transfers. 00:01:29.360 --> 00:01:32.640 That event will be held here but it's on a Thursday at 12:30 to 1:30 00:01:32.640 --> 00:01:37.200 and that calendar is on our website on the WGD website 00:01:37.200 --> 00:01:40.880 and you can talk to any of us after this if you need help figuring that out and I 00:01:40.880 --> 00:01:44.079 also put several copies of our calendar in the back that has a whole calendar 00:01:44.079 --> 00:01:48.159 for the semester you can take one. Okay this presentation will last about 00:01:48.159 --> 00:01:51.439 30 minutes so we have time about 20 minutes for discussion 00:01:51.439 --> 00:01:55.200 questions and answers and then we have a reception to follow 00:01:55.200 --> 00:01:59.280 which you're all invited to. We have a sign up sheet uh Putu do 00:01:59.280 --> 00:02:02.320 you have the two flip the two things okay we're gonna send a sign up 00:02:02.320 --> 00:02:05.920 sheet if you haven't already signed it please sign it and put your email 00:02:05.920 --> 00:02:09.599 address and let us know if you want to be added to our listserv where you'll 00:02:09.599 --> 00:02:12.560 get announcements about our future discussion series. 00:02:12.560 --> 00:02:16.560 In any case we want to know how many people are here if your students faculty 00:02:16.560 --> 00:02:20.319 because we do use our records as an opportunity to raise money to bring 00:02:20.319 --> 00:02:24.239 speakers like Wanjiru who's flown in from Kenya. 00:02:24.239 --> 00:02:29.520 so um all right and after this talk we also send out a 00:02:29.520 --> 00:02:33.440 short email survey that's why we want your email address it'll take you 00:02:33.440 --> 00:02:36.560 three to five minutes to fill out and again we use that to 00:02:36.560 --> 00:02:40.080 track how important useful other recommendations for 00:02:40.080 --> 00:02:44.560 topics for a discussion series so Dr. Thompson will introduce our speaker 00:02:44.560 --> 00:02:46.959 thank you 00:02:49.360 --> 00:02:54.480 Thank you Dr. Christie and it is a real thrill to see everyone here. 00:02:54.480 --> 00:02:59.120 We should have gotten a bigger room I think, next time 00:02:59.120 --> 00:03:02.560 we'll do that but thank you so much for coming. 00:03:02.560 --> 00:03:08.000 As Dr. Christie mentioned this particular lecture is a collaboration 00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:11.120 between the center for international research 00:03:11.120 --> 00:03:15.519 education and development and the global programs office of the college of 00:03:15.519 --> 00:03:21.200 agriculture and life sciences. This began about seven months ago 00:03:21.200 --> 00:03:25.440 when I was attending a conference that was sponsored by 00:03:25.440 --> 00:03:28.640 the center for international research education 00:03:28.640 --> 00:03:32.080 and development here at Virginia Tech, and 00:03:32.080 --> 00:03:38.720 Dr. Kamau-Rutenberg was a speaker and a very dynamic speaker as you'll soon 00:03:38.720 --> 00:03:42.000 find out and had a chance to meet her and we 00:03:42.000 --> 00:03:45.760 began to talk about bringing her to Virginia Tech, so it took 00:03:45.760 --> 00:03:50.560 us about seven months but we're really thrilled to have her here on campus 00:03:50.560 --> 00:03:54.799 and I think she has a very timely topic to share with us and obviously there's a 00:03:54.799 --> 00:03:59.760 lot of interest so let me just read a brief bio 00:03:59.760 --> 00:04:02.879 and then i'll hand it directly to her. 00:04:02.879 --> 00:04:07.360 Dr. Wanjiru Kamau-Rutenberg is the director of African women in 00:04:07.360 --> 00:04:10.480 agricultural research and development which is called AWARD. 00:04:10.480 --> 00:04:16.560 AWARD is working toward inclusive agriculture driven prosperity for the 00:04:16.560 --> 00:04:19.759 African continent by strengthening the production and 00:04:19.759 --> 00:04:23.040 dissemination of agricultural research and innovation 00:04:23.040 --> 00:04:28.960 that is more gender responsive. Born in Kenya, Dr. Kamau-Rutenberg holds 00:04:28.960 --> 00:04:33.600 a PhD and a master's degree in political science from the University of Minnesota 00:04:33.600 --> 00:04:37.440 and a bachelor of arts degree in politics and a doctorate 00:04:37.440 --> 00:04:43.120 from Whitman College in Washington state. Dr. Kamau-Rutenberg has received 00:04:43.120 --> 00:04:48.000 widespread recognition for her work including being honored as a White House 00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:52.400 champion of change, named one of the 100 most influential 00:04:52.400 --> 00:04:58.320 Africans by New African magazine, recognized as a Ford Foundation champion 00:04:58.320 --> 00:05:03.280 of democracy and named one of Kenya's top 40 women 00:05:03.280 --> 00:05:15.759 under 40 among other recognitions. So we're glad to have you Wanjiru. 00:05:15.759 --> 00:05:22.000 Hi everyone, hi everyone [Audience: hello] It's interesting I've 00:05:22.000 --> 00:05:24.080 realized there's some cultural differences 00:05:24.080 --> 00:05:27.120 like in Africa when you say hello to an audience you do 00:05:27.120 --> 00:05:31.840 actually expect a hello back and I realize in the US people don't actually 00:05:31.840 --> 00:05:37.039 greet people so hi everyone. 00:05:37.280 --> 00:05:41.039 all right so this is what I'm going to try and do 00:05:41.039 --> 00:05:45.440 I am going to I've got a powerpoint deck I'm going to try and go through that 00:05:45.440 --> 00:05:50.080 relatively quickly to my target is to allow 00:05:50.080 --> 00:05:54.000 us about 40 minutes to have a conversation 00:05:54.000 --> 00:06:00.639 as you heard from my bio I have had multiple multiple lives multiple careers 00:06:00.639 --> 00:06:04.080 started off as a political scientist in between 00:06:04.080 --> 00:06:07.360 ran a leadership incubator for girls and young women 00:06:07.360 --> 00:06:10.479 working in Kenya across and now across east Africa 00:06:10.479 --> 00:06:14.319 and now I run AWARD, working in the ag research sector 00:06:14.319 --> 00:06:17.600 so there's a lot of things we could talk about 00:06:17.600 --> 00:06:22.639 and I have never been known to be short of an opinion 00:06:22.880 --> 00:06:29.440 so how about we do this does this move things forward and back no it doesn't oh 00:06:29.440 --> 00:06:33.520 shoot what did i do i made it red ah okay 00:06:33.520 --> 00:06:39.039 i don't think that's what that does 00:06:39.039 --> 00:06:42.319 all right so that's me when do you know award 00:06:42.319 --> 00:06:46.479 we know what did i do i'm sorry i'll just turn it off 00:06:46.479 --> 00:06:53.120 turn things off um how do i make this go forward 00:06:57.199 --> 00:07:03.919 oh dear what did i do how do i make the slides go for it 00:07:06.960 --> 00:07:11.520 oh look at this okay great 00:07:13.280 --> 00:07:16.639 okay looks like we're gonna have that little blue thing throughout 00:07:16.639 --> 00:07:21.199 oh yes let's talk agriculture how many of you in the agriculture 00:07:21.199 --> 00:07:26.720 field show of hands okay good um it means not all of us are in 00:07:26.720 --> 00:07:31.360 agriculture so some of what i say is to be new and perhaps even 00:07:31.360 --> 00:07:36.639 interesting um agriculture is really important to 00:07:36.639 --> 00:07:40.240 Africa agriculture is really important to 00:07:40.240 --> 00:07:44.800 African economies you cannot talk about African economies 00:07:44.800 --> 00:07:50.080 without talking about agriculture so for example after the government 00:07:50.080 --> 00:07:53.039 sector the agricultural sector provides the 00:07:53.039 --> 00:07:58.400 largest number of stable jobs on the continent in countries like 00:07:58.400 --> 00:08:04.319 Burundi, Burkina Faso, and Madagascar more than 80 percent of the labor force 00:08:04.319 --> 00:08:08.000 is in the agricultural sector 00:08:08.080 --> 00:08:12.000 agriculture on the whole accounts for about 32 percent 00:08:12.000 --> 00:08:15.520 of all of Africa's gross domestic products 00:08:15.520 --> 00:08:19.440 now we export a lot of gold and diamonds and copper 00:08:19.440 --> 00:08:24.560 so for agriculture to comprise 32 percent of the average GDP 00:08:24.560 --> 00:08:30.400 it's a huge sector again you cannot talk about african economies 00:08:30.400 --> 00:08:34.000 ending poverty in africa without getting serious about 00:08:34.000 --> 00:08:38.719 agriculture so um and that may for me that makes it 00:08:38.719 --> 00:08:43.519 really interesting now as was mentioned before in one of my 00:08:43.519 --> 00:08:47.839 other lives i was in academia and i taught courses i was 00:08:47.839 --> 00:08:51.360 an assistant professor of politics at university of san francisco 00:08:51.360 --> 00:08:55.600 and i taught courses on african politics international aid and development 00:08:55.600 --> 00:09:02.480 and i gave a lot of pop quizzes so pop quiz here we go 00:09:02.480 --> 00:09:08.640 okay where is agriculture ranked amongst the sectors with highest 00:09:08.640 --> 00:09:12.399 growth potential in africa out of the top 00:09:12.399 --> 00:09:17.200 i'm gonna make it easy it's in the top five but what rank do you think it is of 00:09:17.200 --> 00:09:21.920 all the sectors that have the highest growth potential 00:09:21.920 --> 00:09:24.880 where is agriculture 00:09:25.360 --> 00:09:33.200 two one oh come on people it's a quiz wake up wake up wake up one one 00:09:33.200 --> 00:09:41.440 two someone did some research oh shoot that i cut that off agriculture 00:09:41.440 --> 00:09:44.560 is actually second and there's a report from ernst 00:09:44.560 --> 00:09:48.880 young the agriculture sector is the second highest growth potential sector 00:09:48.880 --> 00:09:55.440 um for the for the continent next pop quiz question at 00:09:55.440 --> 00:10:02.560 what rate is africa's agriculture sector sector projected to grow until 2013. 00:10:02.560 --> 00:10:07.600 the agricultural sector grew is growing projected to grow at a particular rate 00:10:07.600 --> 00:10:11.279 every year until 2030. what do you think that 00:10:11.279 --> 00:10:15.519 rate of growth is projected to be 00:10:16.399 --> 00:10:23.600 17 that's a little too high seven percent are you getting close 00:10:23.760 --> 00:10:29.120 i'm hearing ten five two people what rate is the american economy 00:10:29.120 --> 00:10:34.399 growing at right now i'm just asking i can't read it 00:10:34.399 --> 00:10:37.760 is it anywhere near four it's closer to three 00:10:37.760 --> 00:10:43.600 right the american economy is growing at three percent so let's 00:10:43.600 --> 00:10:49.040 let's adjust so let me ask again at what rate is 00:10:49.040 --> 00:10:52.160 africa's agriculture sector projected to grow 00:10:52.160 --> 00:10:58.399 every year until the year 2030. 1.85 all right 00:10:58.399 --> 00:11:01.839 yeah six percent 00:11:01.920 --> 00:11:04.800 right um 00:11:05.200 --> 00:11:10.800 after consumer the consumer goods agriculture 220 billion dollars in 00:11:10.800 --> 00:11:17.200 revenue 2008 if we grow at six percent every year 00:11:17.200 --> 00:11:20.640 from 2008 to the year 2030 these are projections 00:11:20.640 --> 00:11:27.200 by the international money monetary fund and the world bank 00:11:27.360 --> 00:11:30.880 we're gonna i mean the agriculture sector 00:11:30.880 --> 00:11:34.560 in addition to employ here's the point of making the agriculture sector in 00:11:34.560 --> 00:11:39.519 addition to employing a lot of our population is 00:11:39.519 --> 00:11:45.760 also going to be one of the fastest if not the fastest growing sector on the 00:11:45.760 --> 00:11:49.760 continent a lot of us get obsessed with uh 00:11:49.760 --> 00:11:54.399 exporting minerals and not exporting gold the diamond 00:11:54.399 --> 00:11:57.760 platinum and everything else we're discovering digging up and selling 00:11:57.760 --> 00:12:03.519 abroad but the agriculture sector in addition to creating that employment 00:12:03.519 --> 00:12:07.040 which if you understand the youth bulge that we have on the continent with 00:12:07.040 --> 00:12:10.480 something like what sixty percent of the population being 00:12:10.480 --> 00:12:13.440 under the age of 00:12:13.680 --> 00:12:18.399 15 i want to say does anyone have those numbers on the youth pound 00:12:18.399 --> 00:12:24.959 i mean we have an incredible young and an incredibly young population 00:12:24.959 --> 00:12:31.120 um that we're gonna need to feed and those young people are in a couple 00:12:31.120 --> 00:12:35.519 of years gonna start making babies so we'll have even more 00:12:35.519 --> 00:12:40.079 mouths to feed again the what i'm trying to say here is 00:12:40.079 --> 00:12:42.399 a scene of an agriculture sector that's 00:12:42.399 --> 00:12:46.880 absolutely critical to economy to our economies critical to ending 00:12:46.880 --> 00:12:52.160 poverty in terms of jobs creation wealth creation and also to food 00:12:52.160 --> 00:12:54.959 security and if you think about what food 00:12:54.959 --> 00:13:00.000 insecurity does to uh relative to conflicts we cannot as a 00:13:00.000 --> 00:13:04.000 continent afford to ignore agriculture so we got it agriculture is 00:13:04.000 --> 00:13:07.440 super important right great so all of you all need to like 00:13:07.440 --> 00:13:14.160 what shift your majors to uh just good okay um 00:13:14.160 --> 00:13:18.959 my husband loves puns so i had to get this in there for him 00:13:18.959 --> 00:13:22.079 much of the agriculture sector on the continent 00:13:22.079 --> 00:13:27.120 is growing at rapid pace and is an incredibly important sector for us 00:13:27.120 --> 00:13:31.920 we are actually out as a continent at a fork in the road 00:13:31.920 --> 00:13:36.160 um and there's a couple of critical decisions that the continent needs to 00:13:36.160 --> 00:13:40.000 make about what kind of agriculture sector we 00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:45.519 want for ourselves um isn't that so cool 00:13:45.680 --> 00:13:49.519 i thought it was funny okay couple of questions 00:13:49.519 --> 00:13:56.399 that represent that fork in the road first question are we going to have an 00:13:56.399 --> 00:14:01.440 agriculture sector that grows african prosperity 00:14:01.440 --> 00:14:04.560 or is the african agriculture sector going to 00:14:04.560 --> 00:14:12.560 end up as a enhanced means of extracting the natural resources of african soils 00:14:12.560 --> 00:14:19.199 and exporting them abroad this would not be the first time that 00:14:19.199 --> 00:14:23.360 growth in a sector actually leaves africans more 00:14:23.360 --> 00:14:28.240 impoverished than not allow me to share this 00:14:28.240 --> 00:14:32.560 does anyone know what this is oh it says right there 00:14:32.560 --> 00:14:39.680 this is a map of the major railways uh rails the the rail system on the 00:14:39.680 --> 00:14:42.560 continent does someone know do you notice 00:14:42.560 --> 00:14:47.199 something distinct about this network of rails 00:14:47.199 --> 00:14:50.480 yes sir they're all along the coast of africa 00:14:50.480 --> 00:14:57.279 they're all leading to the coast now where in the world would you build a 00:14:57.279 --> 00:15:01.920 real network that isn't a network on a continent 00:15:01.920 --> 00:15:04.959 why might you do that 00:15:06.160 --> 00:15:12.880 it's to export this is our critical infrastructure was built to extract 00:15:12.880 --> 00:15:18.800 resources from the center and export 00:15:18.800 --> 00:15:25.680 so if we are not careful if we are not thoughtful we 00:15:25.680 --> 00:15:30.240 just because african agriculture is growing does not automatically 00:15:30.240 --> 00:15:35.360 mean that african agriculture will actually lead to african prosperity 00:15:35.360 --> 00:15:39.279 we already have an infrastructure that's built for exporting 00:15:39.279 --> 00:15:43.360 resources anyone who has ever tried to fly 00:15:43.360 --> 00:15:49.600 from dar es salaam to dakar senegal knows that you got to connect your 00:15:49.600 --> 00:15:52.800 flights in paris 00:15:52.880 --> 00:15:58.160 that is our transport infrastructure 00:15:58.560 --> 00:16:05.839 you try and fly from the long way to abijah you'll find yourself 00:16:05.839 --> 00:16:09.839 connecting flights somewhere in europe that is the 00:16:09.839 --> 00:16:14.480 infrastructure we have right now so i'm not talking 00:16:14.480 --> 00:16:17.920 talking theoretically that we could build a sector 00:16:17.920 --> 00:16:24.160 that would extract and send out that is the infrastructure we already 00:16:24.160 --> 00:16:27.040 have that's what we're set up for right now 00:16:27.040 --> 00:16:32.079 we're not very well set up to feed each other across the continent we're 00:16:32.079 --> 00:16:37.199 set up to send it all out so that's the first 00:16:37.199 --> 00:16:40.480 set of decisions we as africans need to make 00:16:40.480 --> 00:16:46.560 about what we want of our ag sector the second one 00:16:46.560 --> 00:16:53.680 is do we want the growth of the african agricultural sector to actually be 00:16:53.680 --> 00:16:58.480 an expansion of already existing systemic inequalities 00:16:58.480 --> 00:17:04.640 within the agriculture sector do we want to how can we be careful 00:17:04.640 --> 00:17:10.559 so that as the sector grows we're not actually growing inequality 00:17:10.559 --> 00:17:15.839 and i mean i just love this graphic right like who's on the escalator and 00:17:15.839 --> 00:17:20.559 who's taking the ladder up um 00:17:20.559 --> 00:17:24.079 and it really starts getting us to the point that i really want to spend a lot 00:17:24.079 --> 00:17:28.240 of time with us um 00:17:28.240 --> 00:17:33.679 a lot of time with you on a lot of time on with you which is the 00:17:33.679 --> 00:17:38.880 gender gap in african agriculture 00:17:40.160 --> 00:17:44.320 now 62 percent of economically active women in africa 00:17:44.320 --> 00:17:47.360 work in the agricultural sector and there are some 00:17:47.360 --> 00:17:50.799 some of the numbers and i'm sure this slide deck will be available 00:17:50.799 --> 00:17:55.360 can be shared um for you to to take closer look this is data from the 00:17:55.360 --> 00:17:59.840 african development bank uh in rwanda malawi in burkina faso more 00:17:59.840 --> 00:18:02.559 than 90 percent of the economically active women 00:18:02.559 --> 00:18:10.559 are in the agriculture sector at the same time african women 00:18:10.559 --> 00:18:15.360 while african women con constitute more than 60 percent of the labor 00:18:15.360 --> 00:18:20.480 force in cocoa and coffee on average they earn less than one third 00:18:20.480 --> 00:18:26.960 of the income that gets generated african women are putting in the labor 00:18:26.960 --> 00:18:31.760 but are getting paid very little for that work we have a 00:18:31.760 --> 00:18:36.400 system that is unequal from that gender perspective the 00:18:36.400 --> 00:18:39.200 africa african rural wage gap between men and 00:18:39.200 --> 00:18:45.280 women is estimated anywhere between 15 to 60 percent 60 00:18:45.280 --> 00:18:48.640 wage gap i mean that's crazy you've got to be working 00:18:48.640 --> 00:18:52.320 really hard to have a gender gap that big 00:18:52.320 --> 00:18:57.360 um there's a report from the worldbankand1.org 00:18:57.360 --> 00:19:01.039 that was funded by gates that said they found that when comparing 00:19:01.039 --> 00:19:05.280 women and men with similar size plots in a similar context 00:19:05.280 --> 00:19:09.600 the gender gaps in agricultural productivity ranged anywhere from 23 00:19:09.600 --> 00:19:14.799 percent in tanzania to 66 percent in the share 00:19:14.799 --> 00:19:19.760 same size plot same context and you're getting vastly different 00:19:19.760 --> 00:19:26.240 um profits so we have a system that has a huge gender 00:19:26.240 --> 00:19:31.039 gap as the sector grows what are we gonna do 00:19:31.039 --> 00:19:35.120 to make sure that we're not taking a poisoned pie 00:19:35.120 --> 00:19:40.400 and making it bigger but rather that we're fixing the systemic inequalities 00:19:40.400 --> 00:19:43.919 so that even as the sector grows that growth 00:19:43.919 --> 00:19:48.080 actually turns into a vehicle for building a more equal 00:19:48.080 --> 00:19:54.240 society and i mean it's super basic there's no way you're gonna go with 00:19:54.240 --> 00:19:57.760 economic growth if you're leaving 50 of your people 00:19:57.760 --> 00:20:02.080 behind it's impossible right 00:20:02.080 --> 00:20:06.559 so these are the things that keep me and my team up at night 00:20:06.559 --> 00:20:12.480 um the piece of this puzzle and this fork in the road that we're trying to 00:20:12.480 --> 00:20:18.559 to shape the decisions around is agricultural research and we're 00:20:18.559 --> 00:20:23.039 really keen and convinced that you can accelerate 00:20:23.039 --> 00:20:30.960 research impact by using a gender lens now let me kind of back into this a bit 00:20:31.280 --> 00:20:36.000 first a lot of people talk about agricultural value chains 00:20:36.000 --> 00:20:39.600 and often when we talk about agricultural value chains we tend to 00:20:39.600 --> 00:20:45.919 think of value chains as beginning at the farm at that production level 00:20:46.960 --> 00:20:52.000 but to be honest agricultural value chains actually start at the research 00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:56.480 stage so if you're going to take a value chain approach and here i'm speaking to 00:20:56.480 --> 00:20:59.280 some of my colleagues who are already in the ag sector 00:20:59.280 --> 00:21:02.559 if you're going to take a value chain approach you actually need to be 00:21:02.559 --> 00:21:07.440 considering the research end as the very beginning 00:21:07.440 --> 00:21:10.720 of the agricult cultural value chain let me 00:21:10.720 --> 00:21:18.159 translate that in really simple ways agricultural researchers make decisions 00:21:18.159 --> 00:21:22.080 as part of their research process they make decisions that have 00:21:22.080 --> 00:21:30.320 huge impacts further on down the line super quick down and dirty example 00:21:30.320 --> 00:21:35.120 take crop breeding take a scientist who's working on a new 00:21:35.120 --> 00:21:38.640 variety of beans 00:21:39.039 --> 00:21:42.640 we have built systems to train scientists 00:21:42.640 --> 00:21:48.320 to really focus on yield right you need to breed for something that's 00:21:48.320 --> 00:21:53.520 going to have high heels along the way it becomes really 00:21:53.520 --> 00:21:56.640 important for these same scientists to understand 00:21:56.640 --> 00:22:00.720 and have the tools and the skills to be able to actually also consider 00:22:00.720 --> 00:22:05.760 a whole host of other things for example you're coming up with a new variety of 00:22:05.760 --> 00:22:11.200 bean how long is this thing going to take to cook 00:22:11.200 --> 00:22:16.000 how much firewood and who's going to fetch that firewood to cook this thing 00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:22.159 how much water is this thing going to take to cook 00:22:22.640 --> 00:22:29.120 is it going to taste like crap i mean simple basic but if we have a 00:22:29.120 --> 00:22:32.159 training system that doesn't equip scientists 00:22:32.159 --> 00:22:35.760 with the ability to prioritize those questions 00:22:35.760 --> 00:22:39.919 in addition to yield and mind you they're trying to it's not like 00:22:39.919 --> 00:22:42.799 scientists are mean they're like we don't care about gender issues 00:22:42.799 --> 00:22:46.000 they've got a whole host of things to consider water 00:22:46.000 --> 00:22:49.919 climate change drought tolerance pest resistance a whole bunch of 00:22:49.919 --> 00:22:53.919 really important things to also to think about but you can have the most water 00:22:53.919 --> 00:22:57.919 efficient most pest resistant variety that nobody 00:22:57.919 --> 00:23:03.039 cooks that nobody is buying and at the end of the day yeah it'll get 00:23:03.039 --> 00:23:06.559 produced in the first season but if it didn't get bought the first 00:23:06.559 --> 00:23:12.559 time if it's not getting consumed you've just invested millions into 00:23:12.559 --> 00:23:19.600 a breeding program that's resulting in in nothing and so this is where 00:23:19.600 --> 00:23:23.200 we as a ward work in this area where we're 00:23:23.200 --> 00:23:27.600 working with scientists to help them understand what is the gender gap 00:23:27.600 --> 00:23:34.080 and how using a gender lens to inform research decisions as i thought up the 00:23:34.080 --> 00:23:39.679 value chain as we can possibly go has knock-on effects in terms of 00:23:39.679 --> 00:23:44.400 efficiency and adapter adaptability of 00:23:44.400 --> 00:23:48.240 their research outputs i was having a wonderful lunch conversations and we're 00:23:48.240 --> 00:23:50.799 talking about the same composition when it comes to 00:23:50.799 --> 00:23:54.640 soils right when it comes to nutrition how can we 00:23:54.640 --> 00:24:00.080 help our scientists better understand and then know how to 00:24:00.080 --> 00:24:03.360 prioritize what's really going to make a difference 00:24:03.360 --> 00:24:08.000 in their in their research programs so real quick evidence indicates that 00:24:08.000 --> 00:24:12.080 gender responsive research is more efficient results in more 00:24:12.080 --> 00:24:15.120 inclusive better targeted and more relevant 00:24:15.120 --> 00:24:19.440 innovations with higher rates of adoption 00:24:19.440 --> 00:24:23.200 any of you who's interested in this topic especially around that 00:24:23.200 --> 00:24:27.120 intersection between gender and and scientific research i 00:24:27.120 --> 00:24:30.080 urge you to head over to the stanford website 00:24:30.080 --> 00:24:34.159 stanford university has this program called gendered innovations where 00:24:34.159 --> 00:24:39.120 they've been looking at the impacts of 00:24:39.120 --> 00:24:43.600 what we lose when we ignore gender consideration in medicine 00:24:43.600 --> 00:24:47.919 in engineering in environment we all know some of what's been happening in 00:24:47.919 --> 00:24:51.600 terms of heart health and the ways we developed 00:24:51.600 --> 00:24:55.440 hot medication that really does a good job 00:24:55.440 --> 00:24:59.440 taking care of men's needs but is looking like it's not working as 00:24:59.440 --> 00:25:04.000 well for us women fifty percent of the population who live 00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:08.720 longer i must say so if i were a drug company i'd be like 00:25:08.720 --> 00:25:14.320 customers for a lot longer anyway sorry i think i had too much coffee in the 00:25:14.320 --> 00:25:19.120 little country okay at the end of the day when it comes 00:25:19.120 --> 00:25:22.720 to agriculture we really don't want to be having our scientists come 00:25:22.720 --> 00:25:30.720 up with version 2.0 of bicycles for fish we really need our ag scientists 00:25:30.720 --> 00:25:33.840 coming up with innovations that are relevant 00:25:33.840 --> 00:25:37.600 that are going to make sense that are actually going to get used because 00:25:37.600 --> 00:25:42.559 no one goes into this the hard work of doing scientific research 00:25:42.559 --> 00:25:48.320 only for it to sit on a shelf somewhere i've come to really know and appreciate 00:25:48.320 --> 00:25:53.600 our scientists and know that they are dedicated and are spending their 00:25:53.600 --> 00:25:56.080 lives on this because they really want to make a difference 00:25:56.080 --> 00:25:59.279 and so my perspective and our perspective 00:25:59.279 --> 00:26:02.960 at a word is how can we help them make that difference that they are so 00:26:02.960 --> 00:26:06.159 dedicated to and how can uh instead of how can we 00:26:06.159 --> 00:26:09.440 bring on board a set of tools that can help them do 00:26:09.440 --> 00:26:14.000 that more so uh really quickly what then does the 00:26:14.000 --> 00:26:18.799 word do is being that we are uh so concerned about issues of gender 00:26:18.799 --> 00:26:24.080 responsive research uh i'm gonna plow through this excuse me 00:26:24.080 --> 00:26:28.640 we've got a vision we've got a vision towards gender responsive 00:26:28.640 --> 00:26:32.400 a gender responsive agricultural innovation system that's working towards 00:26:32.400 --> 00:26:38.000 agriculture driven prosperity for africa our mission is investing in african 00:26:38.000 --> 00:26:41.600 women scientists agricultural research institutions and 00:26:41.600 --> 00:26:45.760 agribusinesses to deliver gender responsive ag research 00:26:45.760 --> 00:26:50.559 we are looking at um how we work at the individual level and i'm not going to 00:26:50.559 --> 00:26:52.960 read all of this because you can see it 00:26:52.960 --> 00:26:56.720 around the room we are looking at how do we engage at 00:26:56.720 --> 00:27:00.799 the level of individuals in building capable and confident 00:27:00.799 --> 00:27:05.440 african women scientists who are able to lead innovations we are 00:27:05.440 --> 00:27:08.640 looking at the institutional engagement how do 00:27:08.640 --> 00:27:11.760 we engage agricultural research institutions both 00:27:11.760 --> 00:27:16.640 national research institutions and universities so that they are able 00:27:16.640 --> 00:27:19.200 to prioritize and embrace gender 00:27:19.200 --> 00:27:23.440 responsiveness in both policy and in practice and then we're also 00:27:23.440 --> 00:27:26.159 looking at the broader enabling environment 00:27:26.159 --> 00:27:30.399 around how we can get gender responsiveness as a norm 00:27:30.399 --> 00:27:34.799 that's embedded in the culture and practice of african 00:27:34.799 --> 00:27:40.480 ag research so that third piece around their enabling environment is why 00:27:40.480 --> 00:27:46.640 i'm here and how i locate my engaging with all of you virginia tech 00:27:46.640 --> 00:27:50.399 is doing a lot with agricultural researchers on the african 00:27:50.399 --> 00:27:53.760 continent and so if i can get our partners at virginia 00:27:53.760 --> 00:27:56.880 tech asking their african colleagues and engaging 00:27:56.880 --> 00:28:00.000 with african colleagues also around this issue of gender 00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:05.840 responsiveness then we've got a holistic uh system and a holistic approach so you 00:28:05.840 --> 00:28:10.640 guys are part of our uh broader enabling environment 00:28:10.640 --> 00:28:14.559 okay what does a word do really quickly and i think 00:28:14.559 --> 00:28:20.399 uh oh i've got a couple more minutes first the award fellowships and there 00:28:20.399 --> 00:28:25.760 are flyers that are going around have gone around um 00:28:25.760 --> 00:28:28.880 a number of you have have gotten some of those 00:28:28.880 --> 00:28:34.080 um award was created first and foremost as a fellowship program and i'll talk a 00:28:34.080 --> 00:28:36.640 bit about that we are doing that piece around 00:28:36.640 --> 00:28:41.679 institutional transformation with uh grad and i'll talk a bit about that we 00:28:41.679 --> 00:28:44.559 are doing a lot of training and capacity building 00:28:44.559 --> 00:28:48.559 and we've also gone into thinking about gender and agribusiness 00:28:48.559 --> 00:28:53.520 so that's kind of a quick overview of our programmatic activities 00:28:53.520 --> 00:28:57.279 let me get into the first one which is looking at 00:28:57.279 --> 00:29:01.919 where are the women and i've got some bad news 00:29:01.919 --> 00:29:06.000 this is what's happening when it comes to 00:29:06.000 --> 00:29:12.000 our ability to attract and retain women african women in agricultural 00:29:12.000 --> 00:29:16.720 research on the continent we're starting off with women and 34 of 00:29:16.720 --> 00:29:19.279 the students and by the time it gets to leadership 00:29:19.279 --> 00:29:25.600 management you're looking at 17 so we have a the key pipeline when it 00:29:25.600 --> 00:29:31.360 comes to women's leadership now does anyone know what the numbers 00:29:31.360 --> 00:29:34.399 are in the u.s 00:29:35.360 --> 00:29:38.960 i'm just going to leave that suspended in the room there for 00:29:38.960 --> 00:29:43.840 hopefully someone gets interested in how the us is doing in recruiting retaining 00:29:43.840 --> 00:29:51.200 and rising to leadership women in your own ag research sector 00:29:51.200 --> 00:29:55.840 um okay 00:29:58.240 --> 00:30:01.600 now part of me sorry i'm totally gonna be snarky and say 00:30:01.600 --> 00:30:08.240 we're in africa taking care of our business how are you all doing 00:30:08.240 --> 00:30:14.880 that's all enough with my snark um we partnered with uh if pre 00:30:14.880 --> 00:30:18.399 international food policy research institute to recently go back and look 00:30:18.399 --> 00:30:21.279 at the numbers again and found some really interesting 00:30:21.279 --> 00:30:26.159 distinctions around the percent share of female researchers uh across 00:30:26.159 --> 00:30:31.520 different countries um and again the the this deck will be 00:30:31.520 --> 00:30:36.559 available for anyone who's interested what is standing out to us is actually 00:30:36.559 --> 00:30:42.000 we look at the countries in the red francophone africa um is not doing as 00:30:42.000 --> 00:30:46.159 as as well as there seems to be a gap and 00:30:46.159 --> 00:30:49.679 is quite distinct between anglophone and francophone africa 00:30:49.679 --> 00:30:53.039 and so the these finding findings are also 00:30:53.039 --> 00:30:58.159 um informing the work that the ways that we as a world are moving forward and how 00:30:58.159 --> 00:31:02.559 we are choosing to engage so again i'm gonna just keep keep 00:31:02.559 --> 00:31:06.559 powering forward um so i talked about the fellowship and the 00:31:06.559 --> 00:31:11.519 ways that the fellowship is our way of building up the pipeline of african 00:31:11.519 --> 00:31:15.360 women scientists you've got the flyer so i'm not going to go into detail 00:31:15.360 --> 00:31:22.000 around that um but i talked about engaging at the individual level that's 00:31:22.000 --> 00:31:27.120 making sure we've got enough african women choosing to join the ag 00:31:27.120 --> 00:31:30.480 research sector and staying and growing in their careers and we've 00:31:30.480 --> 00:31:34.960 got the fellowship to work on that we recently added two new areas of 00:31:34.960 --> 00:31:38.640 work one is institutions so we've got this 00:31:38.640 --> 00:31:41.360 program gender responsive agricultural research 00:31:41.360 --> 00:31:43.519 and development it's proving to be a bit of a 00:31:43.519 --> 00:31:46.960 challenging acronym we think we're really good at acronyms but i think we 00:31:46.960 --> 00:31:51.760 might have stumbled on this one so we're rethinking this the this this name 00:31:51.760 --> 00:31:54.799 of the the name of this initiative but what 00:31:54.799 --> 00:31:59.519 grad exists to do is to support african research 00:31:59.519 --> 00:32:03.600 institutions grow in their ability to meet their mandates 00:32:03.600 --> 00:32:06.720 that is to conduct research that is more inclusive 00:32:06.720 --> 00:32:10.080 better targeted and better designed to respond to the 00:32:10.080 --> 00:32:13.279 needs and priorities of a diversity of men and women 00:32:13.279 --> 00:32:18.480 across agricultural value chains um and i think that i hopefully that speaks 00:32:18.480 --> 00:32:20.799 to the the issues that i was talking about 00:32:20.799 --> 00:32:24.320 why it's so important to consider gender in ag research 00:32:24.320 --> 00:32:27.440 i've got my five minutes i'm pretty sure i can do it 00:32:27.440 --> 00:32:32.480 um part of what we're looking at as we're looking at institutions 00:32:32.480 --> 00:32:37.600 is within the institutional context the enabling environment at the system level 00:32:37.600 --> 00:32:41.600 policies legislation in the political space that 00:32:41.600 --> 00:32:45.279 institutions are working with if you're a director general or vice 00:32:45.279 --> 00:32:48.080 chancellor of a universe a director general of a research 00:32:48.080 --> 00:32:50.720 institution vice chancellor of a university 00:32:50.720 --> 00:32:53.840 what's the political space that you're working within 00:32:53.840 --> 00:32:59.360 to be able to devote more funding to gender responsive initiatives 00:32:59.360 --> 00:33:04.880 right what is a cadet process for some for some of you in the room you know 00:33:04.880 --> 00:33:08.799 what the kind of process is what does the kind of process say about gender 00:33:08.799 --> 00:33:12.960 how can we better strengthen cadets so that it becomes easier for 00:33:12.960 --> 00:33:17.679 our national institutions to align to to devote resources towards gender 00:33:17.679 --> 00:33:22.240 responsiveness while by aligning to cardiff and vice 00:33:22.240 --> 00:33:26.159 versa um and there's a whole host of other 00:33:26.159 --> 00:33:30.480 global mandates the the agenda 2063 of the africa union and 00:33:30.480 --> 00:33:36.799 all of these broader um policy policy 00:33:36.799 --> 00:33:41.120 pan-african policy commitments or pan-african commitments 00:33:41.120 --> 00:33:45.200 that our governments have made that if you're heading up a government 00:33:45.200 --> 00:33:49.600 institution you can actually then articulate that the reason you're 00:33:49.600 --> 00:33:51.600 leading your institution in this direction 00:33:51.600 --> 00:33:56.320 is because you're helping the country meet its agenda 2063 00:33:56.320 --> 00:34:01.279 targets or card up commitments at the organizational level we're supporting 00:34:01.279 --> 00:34:05.200 leadership to understand how the internal processes arrangements 00:34:05.200 --> 00:34:10.960 procedures frameworks and organizational culture 00:34:10.960 --> 00:34:15.040 also shape what is possible and not possible and then at the individual 00:34:15.040 --> 00:34:18.720 level we really need to focus on build focus 00:34:18.720 --> 00:34:23.440 on building the skills of scientists so that they have the experience and 00:34:23.440 --> 00:34:27.440 knowledge and and the technical skills to incorporate 00:34:27.440 --> 00:34:32.000 gender considerations into their research processes 00:34:32.000 --> 00:34:35.119 final piece of work that we have been doing is around 00:34:35.119 --> 00:34:38.560 gender in agribusiness investments for africa 00:34:38.560 --> 00:34:42.720 and part of what we're trying to do with and i think it's a great acronym 00:34:42.720 --> 00:34:48.320 gaia i think we nailed it on that one um and what we're trying to do with gaia is 00:34:48.320 --> 00:34:52.800 connect the dots from lab to farm to market 00:34:52.800 --> 00:34:56.960 it does it's no good to have individual scientists and research institutions 00:34:56.960 --> 00:35:01.599 produce gender responsive research if that research stays on the shelves 00:35:01.599 --> 00:35:04.800 and doesn't find ways its way into the value chain 00:35:04.800 --> 00:35:11.040 and so by working with agribusinesses and investors into agribusinesses to 00:35:11.040 --> 00:35:14.560 help them understand why gender is important and 00:35:14.560 --> 00:35:18.720 why they ought to be engaging with researchers from a gender perspective 00:35:18.720 --> 00:35:21.760 also then makes sure that there is a pipeline 00:35:21.760 --> 00:35:26.160 of innovations that hit the value chains that are 00:35:26.160 --> 00:35:30.960 impacting the value chains with an aim to bridging the gender gap in african 00:35:30.960 --> 00:35:34.320 agriculture that i started this conversation with so 00:35:34.320 --> 00:35:37.119 what we're doing with gaia is create and manage an 00:35:37.119 --> 00:35:42.160 ag tech solutions marketplace that ensures visibility commercialization 00:35:42.160 --> 00:35:45.440 and scaling up of agricultural innovations with the potential 00:35:45.440 --> 00:35:50.160 commitment to closing the gender gap in african agriculture 00:35:50.160 --> 00:35:54.960 we've had a wonderful range of partners we've been piloting this work 00:35:54.960 --> 00:35:58.320 um since late 2016 and throughout last year 00:35:58.320 --> 00:36:03.599 we've had 430 applications from startup businesses from over 50 countries 00:36:03.599 --> 00:36:08.560 79 businesses have been selected and some of the things that they have been 00:36:08.560 --> 00:36:12.720 um that we have been supporting them with include the following 00:36:12.720 --> 00:36:16.240 i just want to call out the intellectual property piece 00:36:16.240 --> 00:36:19.839 so we have entered our partnership with the world intellectual property 00:36:19.839 --> 00:36:23.760 organization to deliver intellectual property 00:36:23.760 --> 00:36:28.800 training on intellectual property to both research scientists and 00:36:28.800 --> 00:36:33.359 agri-business owners with the idea that a lot of scientists 00:36:33.359 --> 00:36:38.320 distrust ip they think if you try and use any of 00:36:38.320 --> 00:36:40.960 these ip tools what's going to end up happening is 00:36:40.960 --> 00:36:45.680 you're going to restrict access to your research to anyone who can pay 00:36:45.680 --> 00:36:49.359 and so it's been really wonderful working with ripo to help scientists 00:36:49.359 --> 00:36:54.400 understand that not all ip tools 00:36:54.400 --> 00:36:58.160 are about restricting and that you can use iptools 00:36:58.160 --> 00:37:05.040 to actually open access to the innovations that you're working 00:37:05.040 --> 00:37:10.160 on and so for example one of the ways that um also helps that 00:37:10.160 --> 00:37:14.480 my husband's an ip lawyer so i got some of this by osmosis he's a 00:37:14.480 --> 00:37:18.800 scientist who became an ip lawyer and when i started this job he was like oh 00:37:18.800 --> 00:37:24.720 you guys are gonna have to talk about ip tech transfer how you get technologies 00:37:24.720 --> 00:37:27.839 from the university and into the hands of businesses 00:37:27.839 --> 00:37:32.079 no business is going to touch an innovation unless it's ip around it 00:37:32.079 --> 00:37:34.240 because they want to know what they're buying 00:37:34.240 --> 00:37:37.440 right and so having scientists be able to understand 00:37:37.440 --> 00:37:43.680 should you patent first or publish becomes really important in building a 00:37:43.680 --> 00:37:46.960 healthy innovation ecosystem for the continent 00:37:46.960 --> 00:37:53.200 um i did it i think i did that was the one minute sign 00:37:54.480 --> 00:37:58.480 um so thank you and again as i mentioned i 00:37:58.480 --> 00:38:04.079 am happy to talk about a whole host of subjects and i think someone's taking 00:38:04.079 --> 00:38:08.000 questions of people on webex too okay great 00:38:08.000 --> 00:38:14.480 um so yeah that's what award does and i'm hoping that we have left us enough 00:38:14.480 --> 00:38:19.440 time to really have conversation not just me talking at you 00:38:19.440 --> 00:38:21.760 so i'm just going to say it's clear that 00:38:21.760 --> 00:38:24.800 she's very capable of managing conversations so i'm going to sit down 00:38:24.800 --> 00:38:27.599 and you can facilitate you know answer a discussion so i'm just 00:38:27.599 --> 00:38:32.640 going to leave you with them what she's saying is you're on your own 00:38:32.640 --> 00:38:36.560 all right how about me um can i walk around or is it really 00:38:36.560 --> 00:38:40.720 important that i stay here for the mic 00:38:41.520 --> 00:38:46.079 this thing that i turned off oh i can take this one oh good 00:38:46.079 --> 00:38:53.040 okay what you guys want to talk about i'm so eager yes thank you 00:38:53.040 --> 00:38:57.200 good afternoon my question is about brain drain 00:38:57.200 --> 00:39:03.599 i noticed that you chose to go back to africa 00:39:03.599 --> 00:39:08.160 so what do you think are the incentives african nations or even countries like 00:39:08.160 --> 00:39:11.520 india china that have similar brain drain 00:39:11.520 --> 00:39:15.680 experiences um what can i do to bring their talent 00:39:15.680 --> 00:39:18.160 back home 00:39:18.800 --> 00:39:25.599 oh that's a good one okay so it's a good one and it's a sensitive one 00:39:25.599 --> 00:39:29.119 for a lot of people it's also sensitive for me and i'm gonna 00:39:29.119 --> 00:39:32.079 give you probably that not the answer you expected 00:39:32.079 --> 00:39:36.320 the kenyan government didn't do anything to attract me back home 00:39:36.320 --> 00:39:43.520 right like i don't know i i'm guess i i'm not smart enough to 00:39:43.520 --> 00:39:46.640 think about what governments can do to attract people back up 00:39:46.640 --> 00:39:50.720 like i'm not smart enough to figure that piece out 00:39:50.720 --> 00:39:55.680 what i do know is i think we keep having really 00:39:55.680 --> 00:39:59.280 circular conversations about drain brain drain 00:39:59.280 --> 00:40:03.839 that are based on very unfounded assumptions 00:40:03.839 --> 00:40:09.839 one why is brain drain bad again again not the question you were 00:40:09.839 --> 00:40:12.079 thinking not the way you were thinking i was going to answer 00:40:12.079 --> 00:40:18.160 it why is brenda in so bad again first off do you realize do we 00:40:18.160 --> 00:40:22.720 realize that immigrants send more money home 00:40:22.720 --> 00:40:27.680 than overseas development assistance leaps and bounds more 00:40:27.680 --> 00:40:33.839 and so yeah you could have a usaid but i was sending money home and that 00:40:33.839 --> 00:40:40.000 assistance is targeted it's contextual it understands the needs on the ground 00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:43.200 and it reaches communities a lot more directly 00:40:43.200 --> 00:40:49.520 than having a big government contractor get a usaid 00:40:49.520 --> 00:40:54.720 grant to build wealth somewhere right so 00:40:54.720 --> 00:41:00.880 i'm not so down on on brain drain i'm also i lived in the us for 22 years 00:41:00.880 --> 00:41:06.000 i went to high school here my husband in high school um 00:41:06.000 --> 00:41:12.880 and the work that i was doing at kiwidata when the leadership incubator 00:41:12.880 --> 00:41:17.280 that i founded as a grad student when i was a grad student and then when i was 00:41:17.280 --> 00:41:23.040 faculty at usf did as much for girls and young women in 00:41:23.040 --> 00:41:26.880 kenya as if i had physically been there but i 00:41:26.880 --> 00:41:32.240 was able to leverage more resources through my networks 00:41:32.240 --> 00:41:38.640 and the horizons that got opened to me because i was in the u.s and so 00:41:38.640 --> 00:41:43.839 i think the question of brain drain is a lot more complex 00:41:43.839 --> 00:41:48.800 and we keep trying to answer it as if globalization hasn't happened 00:41:48.800 --> 00:41:52.720 and we're not connected and as if money flows 00:41:52.720 --> 00:41:57.040 don't cross money money flows really respect 00:41:57.040 --> 00:42:02.880 national boundaries today and we keep having a brain drain compensation 00:42:02.880 --> 00:42:07.359 as if money and people only stayed one and brains 00:42:07.359 --> 00:42:10.400 and innovations only stay in one place so i was 00:42:10.400 --> 00:42:18.960 leading work in africa while in the us so controversial i know but 00:42:18.960 --> 00:42:22.880 i told you i'm a lot shorter on opinions 00:42:24.240 --> 00:42:27.920 yes so i was thinking about your slide and you talked about 00:42:27.920 --> 00:42:35.280 pipeline from students to leadership in in agricultural research 00:42:35.280 --> 00:42:39.040 it looks to me the the the choke point is 00:42:39.040 --> 00:42:42.720 women going into 00:42:42.839 --> 00:42:49.839 research careers right uh because the percentages were constant 00:42:49.839 --> 00:42:53.200 across your first three categories from students to 00:42:53.200 --> 00:42:56.640 essentially technical support 00:42:57.119 --> 00:43:04.319 sorry i don't know what i did yeah so my question is can you generalize about 00:43:04.319 --> 00:43:08.079 what what's causing that or or is it 00:43:08.079 --> 00:43:13.359 something you you can't generalize about um 00:43:13.359 --> 00:43:17.359 so here we go yeah 00:43:17.920 --> 00:43:22.720 i don't know how to make it get bigger um 00:43:23.119 --> 00:43:27.839 oh here we go 00:43:32.000 --> 00:43:35.359 professional from professional technical support to 00:43:35.359 --> 00:43:39.280 scientists professors lecturers well and then on to management what are the 00:43:39.280 --> 00:43:44.480 factors that caused about how old are you when you're a graduate 00:43:44.480 --> 00:43:48.560 and then professional technical support 00:43:48.800 --> 00:43:53.280 with a graduate degree you're in your late 20s 00:43:53.280 --> 00:43:57.200 yeah and that's when you're starting to make decisions about having family 00:43:57.200 --> 00:44:02.400 about having children right so 00:44:02.960 --> 00:44:09.280 i think that's where a lot of women end up getting stuck in that 00:44:09.280 --> 00:44:12.720 technical support because you then need your master's degree 00:44:12.720 --> 00:44:18.880 or your phd to cross into professors lecturers and and 00:44:18.880 --> 00:44:23.680 research pis so then the composition that i have 00:44:23.680 --> 00:44:28.079 with my african institutional leader colleagues 00:44:28.079 --> 00:44:33.920 is how is your institution doing in terms of not making this a life or 00:44:33.920 --> 00:44:38.480 death decision for a woman 00:44:38.480 --> 00:44:42.960 in terms of her career because if you set up your incentive structures 00:44:42.960 --> 00:44:46.480 within the organization that a woman has to decide either 00:44:46.480 --> 00:44:51.839 i get married and make babies or i have a career 00:44:51.839 --> 00:44:56.640 you've actually started shot yourself in the foot as an institution and you scale 00:44:56.640 --> 00:45:00.079 that out to a whole continent you've got a 00:45:00.079 --> 00:45:05.119 problem because you're having really smart people decide 00:45:05.119 --> 00:45:10.000 to opt out or decide to hold back it's also why the award fellowship does not 00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:13.599 have an age limit you could be 60 and apply and get in 00:45:13.599 --> 00:45:18.960 because we recognize a lot of women opt out or lean back have their babies 00:45:18.960 --> 00:45:22.480 do their family thing and then come back into their careers so 00:45:22.480 --> 00:45:26.160 having a lot of these fellowships that have that age limit 00:45:26.160 --> 00:45:30.880 i really disagree i mean so there's ways that we 00:45:30.880 --> 00:45:34.079 build into our systems and our institutions 00:45:34.079 --> 00:45:38.560 ways of saying to women we know you can we know you're smart enough 00:45:38.560 --> 00:45:44.480 but we have decided you shall not and so how do we hara how are our 00:45:44.480 --> 00:45:48.000 institutions telling women you shall not we don't 00:45:48.000 --> 00:45:51.280 think you should and we're going to make it life or death 00:45:51.280 --> 00:45:54.960 for you to decide whether you want to proceed this way and 00:45:54.960 --> 00:45:58.720 i want to take that the next step forward which is also to 00:45:58.720 --> 00:46:01.920 say gender relations in our societies are 00:46:01.920 --> 00:46:06.160 changing not just in the us but globally 00:46:06.160 --> 00:46:10.160 more women are entering the professional workforce and more women like me 00:46:10.160 --> 00:46:13.200 are choosing to work and to pursue careers 00:46:13.200 --> 00:46:18.480 i'm standing here with you my husband is in nairobi with our two children i have 00:46:18.480 --> 00:46:24.240 a nine year old and a three year old guess what if he's working in an 00:46:24.240 --> 00:46:27.599 institution that's gonna make it really difficult 00:46:27.599 --> 00:46:32.960 for him to be the father that we both need him to be 00:46:32.960 --> 00:46:36.720 that institution is going to miss out on him as well 00:46:36.720 --> 00:46:43.119 and so the imperative it's not this is not about doing favors to women 00:46:43.119 --> 00:46:47.760 with the way gender norms social roles are changing 00:46:47.760 --> 00:46:51.520 this is not about doing favors to women it's about institutions that are going 00:46:51.520 --> 00:46:56.000 to be able to squeeze every good last drop from their talent 00:46:56.000 --> 00:46:59.599 pool and that means making it possible for both men 00:46:59.599 --> 00:47:04.079 and women who want to be parents men who want to be active engaged 00:47:04.079 --> 00:47:10.000 fathers and we had a generation of men who faced the decision and we set up 00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:15.119 society systems that forced men to lean into the workforce 00:47:15.119 --> 00:47:19.599 and lose connection to their children we now have a generation of men who are 00:47:19.599 --> 00:47:22.319 saying i don't want to make that choice i want 00:47:22.319 --> 00:47:26.720 to be an active engaged father and are our institutions set up and 00:47:26.720 --> 00:47:31.200 ready to accommodate accommodate that generation of men and 00:47:31.200 --> 00:47:34.240 for me that makes me excited about millennials 00:47:34.240 --> 00:47:38.319 because i think they're gonna like you're gonna shake this [ __ ] up 00:47:38.319 --> 00:47:41.680 it's fantastic i can't wait for you all to enter the 00:47:41.680 --> 00:47:46.079 workforce because you're gonna make demands on our institutions 00:47:46.079 --> 00:47:52.319 that haven't been made before and me and my husband's generations are the 00:47:52.319 --> 00:47:56.160 kind of first vanguard in terms of it's not just 00:47:56.160 --> 00:48:01.760 maternity leave it's patent it's family leave how do you manage that 00:48:01.760 --> 00:48:06.319 so and i think an important point to make is a lot of the stuff when i stand 00:48:06.319 --> 00:48:10.240 here and talk about gender a lot of people hear women this is not 00:48:10.240 --> 00:48:14.240 about women and it's definitely not about men versus 00:48:14.240 --> 00:48:17.920 women which is what a previous generation of 00:48:17.920 --> 00:48:21.839 activists might have emphasized that's not what it's about it's about 00:48:21.839 --> 00:48:25.440 how we all going to be healthy and how we're going to actually work 00:48:25.440 --> 00:48:29.440 together to solve really pressing problems that previous 00:48:29.440 --> 00:48:34.240 ways of thinking created including climate change 00:48:34.240 --> 00:48:38.240 that me versus you that's how we got into this hot pickle 00:48:38.240 --> 00:48:41.359 and it's getting warmer 00:48:42.000 --> 00:48:46.240 thank you for coming and um 00:48:47.440 --> 00:48:53.760 my question is you know as a woman i'm probably in between the 20 and 40 00:48:53.760 --> 00:48:58.720 and like you my children have four boys and 00:48:58.720 --> 00:49:02.960 i'm thinking of the extension poet extension 00:49:02.960 --> 00:49:06.480 thriving community that we have here at virginia tech 00:49:06.480 --> 00:49:12.160 and with the affiliations that you have i'm wondering if you've dealt or if you 00:49:12.160 --> 00:49:17.359 can speak about girls or young ladies young women 00:49:17.359 --> 00:49:22.559 driving who you know aids for for lack of a better 00:49:22.559 --> 00:49:27.680 work the african community is grappling with issues such as you 00:49:27.680 --> 00:49:31.599 know aids hiv or different diseases and we have 00:49:31.599 --> 00:49:35.760 children now that are having to take up a mantle to do 00:49:35.760 --> 00:49:39.119 something for the economy i'm not talking about specifically child 00:49:39.119 --> 00:49:43.920 labor but just channeling in channeling the idea of 00:49:43.920 --> 00:49:48.559 agriculture as a viable career field 00:49:48.559 --> 00:49:54.800 for young women what have you talking about 00:49:56.079 --> 00:50:01.760 so this is a bit outside the purview of what award does specifically being 00:50:01.760 --> 00:50:05.680 that we're super focused on agricultural research and how to help 00:50:05.680 --> 00:50:10.559 agricultural research do organizations do better what they what 00:50:10.559 --> 00:50:14.880 what they want to do um but as i said i'm never short on 00:50:14.880 --> 00:50:18.240 opinions so what i'm about to say is my opinion 00:50:18.240 --> 00:50:26.319 um not awards official stands on on on the topic um i 00:50:26.319 --> 00:50:29.680 i go to a lot of conferences where people talk about we need to make 00:50:29.680 --> 00:50:33.119 agriculture sexy for the youth we need to make agriculture you know 00:50:33.119 --> 00:50:40.000 what's super sexy making money that's sexy so what i want us to talk 00:50:40.000 --> 00:50:46.800 about is how do we have have and build a viable agricultural ecosystem that's 00:50:46.800 --> 00:50:50.880 not about drudgery but that's about you can 00:50:50.880 --> 00:50:56.559 sustain yourself you can feed your family and you can 00:50:56.720 --> 00:51:00.480 do all the things you aspire to do economically and and 00:51:00.480 --> 00:51:07.680 as a whole human being based within this sector that's one 00:51:07.680 --> 00:51:11.280 now that doesn't mean moving straight into the 00:51:11.280 --> 00:51:15.040 kind of the political scientist in me is about to pop out 00:51:15.040 --> 00:51:19.520 moving straight into the new liberal it's all about making money 00:51:19.520 --> 00:51:23.440 this is all the because this is how we got into this climate change 00:51:23.440 --> 00:51:28.160 mess in the first place using natural resources as if they were 00:51:28.160 --> 00:51:35.920 you know non-ending infinite resources that we could just keep exploiting so 00:51:35.920 --> 00:51:39.880 there needs to be a balance about and and i love the conversation about 00:51:39.880 --> 00:51:43.280 sustainability which is more than making money it's 00:51:43.280 --> 00:51:48.240 about sustaining a life and a livelihood but also sustaining the environment 00:51:48.240 --> 00:51:52.160 within which we live now i'm going to say something 00:51:52.160 --> 00:51:55.200 really and popular to my american colleagues it's 00:51:55.200 --> 00:52:00.079 okay i'm one of you all but in important ways 00:52:00.079 --> 00:52:07.680 america is working with systems that have ossified and it's 00:52:07.680 --> 00:52:11.599 going to be much harder for americans to change your 00:52:11.599 --> 00:52:15.839 thinking and your systems to adapt to the 00:52:15.839 --> 00:52:20.559 changing environment and part of what excites me and part of 00:52:20.559 --> 00:52:25.200 what drove me to move back home is we on the african continent are 00:52:25.200 --> 00:52:30.160 working with new systems most of our universities are 20 years 00:52:30.160 --> 00:52:32.800 old that means you can actually shape 00:52:32.800 --> 00:52:37.920 policies we're working with wet concrete 00:52:37.920 --> 00:52:41.359 whereas you guys here are going to need chisels and hammers 00:52:41.359 --> 00:52:46.960 to actually break down some of the stuff the gender stereotypes the policies and 00:52:46.960 --> 00:52:50.400 expectations and who does what that's already been 00:52:50.400 --> 00:52:53.760 set up here whereas we on the african continent are 00:52:53.760 --> 00:52:59.680 building from from scratch i'm sure that that i didn't 00:52:59.680 --> 00:53:02.800 get into the hiv aids and girls but like i 00:53:02.800 --> 00:53:07.040 i really want to keep it at the level of what kind of agriculture sector do we 00:53:07.040 --> 00:53:09.760 want to build because it's not just about grow grow 00:53:09.760 --> 00:53:15.359 grow it's what are we growing exactly 00:53:15.359 --> 00:53:19.440 i'm looking at trying one more question okay i'm looking at time so 00:53:19.440 --> 00:53:25.200 one i'm gonna take two but make them quick okay that's what i 00:53:25.200 --> 00:53:28.800 was gonna ask you what are we doing sometimes i want to say thank you for 00:53:28.800 --> 00:53:32.880 uh removing the agent and being worse that's one of the most responsive 00:53:32.880 --> 00:53:36.240 um programming i think i've seen in terms of the 00:53:36.240 --> 00:53:39.760 gender program so thank you for that in terms of water we grow 00:53:39.760 --> 00:53:42.880 and it's a challenging question because those are handled us now releasing 00:53:42.880 --> 00:53:46.160 organic food movements and then you're talking about 00:53:46.160 --> 00:53:50.160 lab research and agriculture someone could easily argue that this is 00:53:50.160 --> 00:53:54.640 promoting to that securely modified agriculture in the african continent 00:53:54.640 --> 00:53:59.520 would you say oh this is a good one wow all right let me hear this one and then 00:53:59.520 --> 00:54:02.800 my question was about the new the [ __ ] gap and i was gonna say you 00:54:02.800 --> 00:54:05.760 said like it was very big like some countries it's 12 percent 00:54:05.760 --> 00:54:10.880 others are 66 why is it so big and so broad and at the same time what 00:54:10.880 --> 00:54:18.240 are what's going on to decrease it okay um let me start with this one and then 00:54:18.240 --> 00:54:22.559 close with that the gm question um 00:54:22.559 --> 00:54:25.839 it's country specific right like what happens in virginia is different from 00:54:25.839 --> 00:54:29.680 what happens in hawaii so if you see a gap that's 12 percent 00:54:29.680 --> 00:54:34.559 here and 66 in hawaii you really need to go 00:54:34.559 --> 00:54:39.520 there to understand what's driving that and the answers are as very 00:54:39.520 --> 00:54:45.200 varied as as the statistics and so i'm going to take that 00:54:45.200 --> 00:54:48.400 opportunity to rail against some of what i see 00:54:48.400 --> 00:54:51.839 happening which is we're going to use randomized control trials for bloody 00:54:51.839 --> 00:54:57.520 every problem we're trying to understand this is where country-specific 00:54:57.520 --> 00:55:04.000 studies in this specificity may helps you make sense of the numbers 00:55:04.000 --> 00:55:07.839 um so sorry that's 00:55:07.839 --> 00:55:11.920 a job somewhere i'm sure i'll get in trouble for it but i have to say 00:55:11.920 --> 00:55:15.599 um another gm question so it's a question that my 00:55:15.599 --> 00:55:21.119 uh our communications team hates me even touching but i love it because 00:55:21.119 --> 00:55:24.000 they're like oh my god you're definitely going to say the wrong thing because 00:55:24.000 --> 00:55:28.480 like we work with a bunch of scientists a lot of whom are working on gm 00:55:28.480 --> 00:55:33.839 technologies i uh i'm an organic farmer i 00:55:33.839 --> 00:55:37.440 a organic farm cooperative in san francisco 00:55:37.440 --> 00:55:42.000 like a little in silicon valley a bunch of us were doing that 00:55:42.000 --> 00:55:46.720 um so i guess and and i went to college in the process 00:55:46.720 --> 00:55:49.680 pacific northwest 00:55:50.480 --> 00:55:55.200 tree hunger completely um what has been interesting for me 00:55:55.200 --> 00:55:58.559 personally and again this is not an award opinion 00:55:58.559 --> 00:56:02.799 this is me personally what has been interesting for me is learning more 00:56:02.799 --> 00:56:08.559 and being like huh some yes you can use conventional breeding to achieve some of 00:56:08.559 --> 00:56:15.359 the pest resistance or water efficiency that we need um and there's something to 00:56:15.359 --> 00:56:17.680 be said for being able to do it super quickly 00:56:17.680 --> 00:56:24.960 now do i want pears that have fish dna i'm not sure about that do i 00:56:24.960 --> 00:56:28.559 want african smallholder farmers to have access to 00:56:28.559 --> 00:56:33.520 planting material that's going to help them have a decent habit 00:56:33.520 --> 00:56:42.799 i'm interested in that what but even right but i'm not if i were oh [ __ ] 00:56:43.280 --> 00:56:46.960 if i were minister for agriculture in kenya i'm not sure that i would have 00:56:46.960 --> 00:56:51.359 found gm traps sorry guys because 00:56:51.359 --> 00:56:54.880 the reason i wouldn't allow them is there hasn't been an 00:56:54.880 --> 00:57:02.480 adequate african center conversation on what the heck this is what we want 00:57:02.480 --> 00:57:06.720 and how we want to grow it and so i think the scientists have come up with 00:57:06.720 --> 00:57:11.280 the technologies and they're galloping a hundred miles 00:57:11.280 --> 00:57:16.160 ahead of the rest of us and i'm thinking because y'all are so smart 00:57:16.160 --> 00:57:20.000 you can give us answers without actually asking us what we want 00:57:20.000 --> 00:57:27.040 so if i were in a policy position i'd be like you need to go back and you 00:57:27.040 --> 00:57:31.440 need to talk to people and this needs to be there needs to be 00:57:31.440 --> 00:57:36.240 consensus within the society that the risks 00:57:36.240 --> 00:57:41.920 outweigh the gains outweigh the risks that is me as a policymaker 00:57:41.920 --> 00:57:45.359 from a politicized background as a scientist 00:57:45.359 --> 00:57:50.240 i think we need as many africans actually getting training in these 00:57:50.240 --> 00:57:55.839 technologies so that we have the human resource to be actually 00:57:55.839 --> 00:58:02.240 able to have vigorous debate africans debating with africans not us 00:58:02.240 --> 00:58:05.440 listening to western experts telling us this is what this thing can 00:58:05.440 --> 00:58:08.960 do for you and other westerners telling us no you guys should 00:58:08.960 --> 00:58:13.680 take this i need africans debating these issues in africa and the 00:58:13.680 --> 00:58:16.160 only way we're going to be able to do that is if 00:58:16.160 --> 00:58:20.000 we train enough of our people to understand what these things 00:58:20.000 --> 00:58:24.400 are so they can bring that dividend to me and my mother and my grandmother 00:58:24.400 --> 00:58:28.400 and then we talk about it and i need our policies set up to enable the 00:58:28.400 --> 00:58:33.280 conversation to happen then we move forward if i had a magic 00:58:33.280 --> 00:58:35.839 wand that's how i do it luckily for the 00:58:35.839 --> 00:58:47.359 universe i don't thank you so much guys 00:58:47.359 --> 00:58:52.559 i think you can see why we were so thrilled to get one giro here 00:58:52.559 --> 00:58:55.920 our college of agriculture and life sciences we're also very interested in 00:58:55.920 --> 00:59:00.400 the new partnership with award and so please one more time 00:59:00.400 --> 00:59:05.839 join me in thanking 00:59:07.440 --> 00:59:09.520 you