AWARD is a career-development program that since 2008 has, through tailored fellowships, equipped top women agricultural scientists across sub-Saharan Africa to accelerate agricultural gains by strengthening their science and leadership skills.

AWARD envisions a robust, resilient, and gender responsive agricultural innovation system working to drive prosperity and food and nutrition security for Africa. We invest in African scientists and institutions so that they can deliver innovative, sustainable, gender-responsive agricultural research and development for the continent. Our 2017-2022 strategy focuses on three key components:

Individuals

Through our 2-year career development fellowship, AWARD invests in the leadership, mentoring, and scientific research skills of high-achieving African women scientists to ensure that capable, confident, and influential African women scientists are available to lead critical advances and innovations in agricultural research and development for the continent.

Institutions

AWARD also supports African agricultural research institutions to prioritize and embrace gender responsiveness in both policy and practice. Working with select institutions, we partner to grow their capacity for gender responsive agricultural research by leveraging the talents of gender-diverse research teams, and by strengthening gender prioritization in research design, implementation, and dissemination. Supporting the agribusiness sector become more gender responsive ensures that once it is produced, gender responsive research is disseminated and scaled up in ways that retain the focus on bridging the gender gap in African agriculture.

Enabling Environment

AWARD is working to ensure that gender responsiveness becomes a norm embedded in the culture and practice of African agricultural research by building an enabling environment for gender responsiveness. We focus on increasing the visibility of women scientists and leaders, generating and curating the evidence base on gender responsiveness in agricultural research, and working to transform the growing awareness of gender issues into policies, programs, and accountability mechanisms.