Christine Okali, FAC Gender and Social Difference theme convenor, will attend two forthcoming meetings on gender and agricultural research in October 2012.

The first is an international seminar on ‘Gender Relations and Women’s Agency in Rural Environment: What Has Changed, What Is to Be Changed in Sub-Saharan Africa’. It is organised by the General Directorate for International Cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Italy, and will take place in Rome in October.

The seminar aims to discuss the issues raised by a research project carried out in four African regions. The theoretical framework of IAO/Gender programme was an analysis of how key words/concepts such as “land”, “food”, “resources”, “markets”, “value chains”, “association”, changed their meanings and scope in the international development debate and practice. This approach allowed a broad outlook on rural women in the context of new markets’ patterns, changing demography, new access to communication technologies  which are changing gender relationships.

The second meeting is a workshop on ‘Gender Transformative Approaches in Agricultural Research for Development’. It is organised by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), which has launched a set of new research programs (CRPs) to improve the focus, relevance and impact of its research. The workshop will take place at the headquarters of WorldFish in Penang.