To mark the upcoming International Day of Rural Women on 15th October, the CGIAR Research Program on Dryland Systems has released a special update including:

• Key Gender Research Studies and Highlights from Dryland Systems work over the past year.
• Two publication reviews of recent gender-responsive studies on Smallholder Goat Production and Marketing: A Gendered Baseline Study in Mozambique, and on Gender Dynamics in Water Governance Institutions in Zimbabwe.
• An Exposure photo story on Rural Women in Drylands: Their Success – Our Future, showcasing the multifaceted roles and contributions of rural women in dryland communities.
• A blog story by Dr. Dina Najjar, gender specialist at ICARDA describing her research insights on the wages and working conditions of landless women and men in the agricultural sector in Morocco.
• An interview with Mrs. Bezaiet Dessalegn, livelihoods and development specialist at ICARDA, who recounts her experience with key challenges to integrating gender in the research process and to achieving gender parity in agriculture and science.

To view the special issue, click here. 

In addition, the recently released Exposure photo story Dreams of Youth in Drylands highlights the work that CRP Dryland Systems is doing with many research and developments partners, including the Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR) and Young Professionals for Agricultural Development (YPARD), to provide young people living in rural drylands with better educational, technical and entrepreneurial skills and opportunities. In addition, the program works to create more equitable, diversified and inclusive social networks for young people to become proactively involved in innovation mechanisms and processes to improve and transform drylands agricultural livelihoods for generation to come.

To view Dreams of Youth in Drylands, click here. 

Photo: A young farmer learning to use drip irrigation. Photo Credit: ICRISAT