The IGNITE (Impacting Gender & Nutrition through Innovative Technical Exchange in Agriculture) project organized a Research Summit in Nairobi (Jan 23 to 25) to share findings and evidence concerning ways of effectively and efficiently increasing women’s empowerment in agriculture as well as equitable consumption of nutritious diets. The summit was attended by over 70 participants, from Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and Kenya. The IGNITE Research Summit has brought together practitioners from the private sector, NGOs, governmental agencies, policy-making agencies, researchers, and academia.

The SAA-IGNITE partnership started in 2019 and helped to strengthen SAA’s ability to incorporate nutrition and gender equality in its strategy, program design, implementation as well as monitoring and evaluation.  Informed by the diagnostic as well as institutional nutrition and gender skills capacity assessments carried out in 2020, gender and nutrition training was given by the IGNITE team to SAA staff from Ethiopia, Mali, Nigeria, and Uganda. Besides, through the partnership the following three reaches were conducted:

• Formative assessment on Nutrition and Gender Behaviors among Small-holder Farmers in Nigeria;
• Gender-specific drivers of best practice adoption of teff farmers in Ethiopia;
• Nutrition KAP study among Smallholder Farmers in Ethiopia.

Results from the above studies were shared during the IGNITE research summit. The Sasakawa Africa Association was represented by four members of the organization at the summit: Ethiopia Tadesse, Head of Communication & Advocacy; Shushan Nigussie, Head of Administration; Melese Liyehe, Regenerative Agriculture Coordinator (SAA -Ethiopia); and Getachew Minas, M&E Coordinator (SAA-Ethiopia).

In a panel discussion, Mr. Melese Liyehe shared how gender and nutrition data informed SAA’s approach to extension. While Ms. Tadesse in her keynote address talked about how SAA turned around the strategy of integrating nutrition and gender mainstreaming to be a core pillar at the institutional level.

The research summit provided the opportunity to share and learn how evidence from research helped in mainstreaming gender and nutrition

In a panel discussion, Mr. Liyehe (on right) shared how gender and nutrition data informed SAA’s approach to extension.

Mrs. Ethiopia Tadesse, SAA Head of Communications and Advocacy delivering keynote address at the IGNITE Research Summit