By Sharon Atieno
As the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) aims to reach 16 million smallholder farmers through its activities and those of its partners by 2022, the Foundation has partnered with Tanager to integrate nutrition and mainstream gender in its food, quality and post-harvest management impact area.
Tanager, through the Impacting Gender and Nutrition through Innovative Technical Exchange for Agriculture (IGNITE) mechanism, will work with AATF in the two-year agreement, to integrate strategies that will not only increase and sustain women’s empowerment in agriculture but also address factors that have contributed to gender inequalities in the agriculture sector.
“We are collaborating with IGNITE to identify models that can improve nutrition and women’s empowerment through our work. Gender integration is considered a cross cutting issue within AATF and is embedded in all its programmes aligned to the current AATF strategy,” said Grace Muinga, AATF Gender Focal Point.
“Mainstreaming a gender perspective across AATF activities involves ensuring that gender dynamics consideration is central to all activities in technology identification, development, deployment and commercialization including resource allocation, planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of projects,” she added.
According to Maureen Munjua, Country Representative, Tanager in Kenya, the partnership will support AATF to integrate nutrition-sensitive interventions in new and existing programmes and provide thought leadership in the design of new interventions that have potential to deliver on improved nutrition outcomes.
In addition, through AATF’s work with multiple stakeholders, this partnership will demonstrate and influence a market system approach to integration of nutrition and mainstreaming of gender equality.
“Considering the enormous role of women in the sector, African agriculture needs to ensure access to safe, affordable nutritious diets and improving women’s economic and social empowerment. IGNITE will continue to partner with AATF in strengthening gender mainstreaming from an institutional perspective” said Maureen.
Contacts: n.muchiri@aatf-africa.org
