October 31, 2019: Building climate resilience – important especially among marginalized communities – needs innovative approaches. This is where the ‘Building Resilience’ project is making headway in the states of Odisha and Assam in India. A workshop for scientists from the two states was held to focus specifically on mainstreaming gender within action plans.
The two-day workshop on gender integration was held at MSSRF Chennai with the objectives of
- understanding on-going gender mainstreaming initiatives of different work packages in the project,
- strengthening and harmonising the gender strategy of different partners to achieve the common objectives
- preparing the gender action plan for the proposed activities of different work packages.
The workshop also discussed gender needs, roles, responsibilities, access to resources and services, institutional linkages, participation and level of decision making to understand key issues and practices and strategies to mainstream gender by all the partners.
“The deliberations and interactions were truly an eye-opener,” says Dr P J Mishra, Joint Director Extension, Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT) “We not only discussed the role of women in adoption of climate-resilient agricultural practices, we are now looking to sensitize everyone in our project activities to involve more and more women and enable them to actively participate in decision making processes.”
“Discussions on different technologies across project partners was really worthy to note. We were also taking efforts to identify different activities of women farmers across various farming systems,” said Dr Supriya Priyadarsani, Scientist and the co-principal investigator from Indian Council of Agricultural Research – National Rice Research Institute (ICAR-NRRI)
Dr. Anilkumar, Executive Director, MSSRF who inaugurated the workshop, emphasized on the major role that scientists had in climate action and to facilitate empowerment of women.
Scientists form NRRI, OUAT, Assam Agricultural University and MSSRF participated in the workshop. Dr. Rengalakshmi, PI, Resilience project, MSSRF and Dr. R. Rajkumar, Senior scientists, MSSRF facilitated the workshop.
Implemented in Odisha and Assam, in east and northeast India, the Resilience Project aims to roll out selected climate smart agriculture technologies for demonstration and upscaling in partnership with farmers and other stakeholders. Project partners include Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research, M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology, Assam Agricultural University, Indian Council of Agricultural Research – National Rice Research Institute, International Water Management Institute.
More info: http://www.resilienceindia.org