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Commentary: building science and leadership
skills in African women in agricultural
research and development
Mary Njenga
a

b
& Yvonne Pinto
c
a
Department of Land Resource Management and Agricultural Technology
(LARMAT) , University of Nairobi , PO Box 1253-0606, 00100, Nairobi, Kenya
b
World Agro forestry Centre (ICRAF) , PO Box 30677-00100, Nairobi, Kenya
c
Agriculture Learning and Impacts Network (ALINe), Institute of
Development Studies at the University of Sussex , Brighton, BN1 9RE, UK
Published online: 25 Oct 2011.
To cite this article: Mary Njenga & Yvonne Pinto (2011) Commentary: building science and leadership skills in
African women in agricultural research and development, International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability,
9:4, 479-483, DOI: 10.1080/14735903.2011.607609
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14735903.2011.607609
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Commentary: building science and
leadership skills in African women in
agricultural research and development
Mary Njenga
1,2
* and Yvonne Pinto
3
1
Department of Land Resource Management and Agricultural Technology (LARMAT), University of Nairobi, POBox 1253-0606,
00100 Nairobi, Kenya
2
World Agro forestry Centre (ICRAF), PO Box 30677-00100, Nairobi, Kenya
3
Agriculture Learning and Impacts Network (ALINe), Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex,
Brighton BN1 9RE, UK
Introduction
Women make essential contributions to agriculture
making up 43 and 50%, respectively, of the agricultural
labour force globally and that in Sub-Saharan Africa
(SSA). However, this contribution is not translated
directly into actual control over any economic benets
in production (FAO, 2011). Of those women in the least
developed countries who report being economically
active, 79% report agriculture as their primary econ-
omic activity (FAOSTAT). In some regions within
Africa, women do contribute over 60% of the total
time spent in agricultural activities (FAOSTAT, 2009).
A shortcoming of information on womens share of
the agricultural labour is that the data available do not
account for differences in number of hours worked. If
men who are identied as part of the economically
active population in agriculture provide fewer hours
of agricultural labour than women in the same sector,
we could underestimate the importance of women.
For example, some literature suggests that men in
Africa work fewer hours than women, across all activi-
ties (Blackden and Wodon, 2006). Compared with their
male counterparts women operate smaller farms, keep
fewer livestock typically of smaller breeds and earn
less from the livestock they own. They have less edu-
cation and less access to agricultural information and
extension services, use less credit and other nancial
services, and are much less likely to purchase inputs
such as fertilizers, improved seeds and mechanical
equipment (FAO, 2011). Alderman et al. (1996)
estimated that reducing inequalities in human capital,
physical capital and current inputs between male and
female farmers in SSA could potentially increase
agricultural productivity by 1020%. And for future
agricultural research to produce meaningful changes,
the needs, preferences, and constraints and differential
roles of female farmers and women engaged in agricul-
tural production must be recognized (Meinzen-Dick
et al., 2010). In order to improve womens lives, for
example, through the achievement of equality
between women and men as partners and beneciaries
of development, nancial support is required, a need
that has beenwell articulatedbythe recentlyestablished
UN Women (Guardian News and Media Limited,
2011). Failure to recognize the roles, differences and
inequities between men and women poses a serious
limitation to the effectiveness of the agricultural
development agenda (World Bank et al., 2009).
In examining gendered patterns of extension, it is
important to consider who delivers extension services
because female extension agents are more likely to
reach female farmers, especially in highly sex-
segregated societies (Meinzen-Dick et al., 2010).
Although male researchers can address the needs of
women farmers, the lack of gender balance among agri-
cultural scientists diminishes the likelihood that the
specic needs of rural women will be met appropriately
(Meinzen-Dick et al., 2010). In SSA only one in four
agricultural researchers are female (Beintema and Di
*Corresponding author. Email: m.njenga@cgiar.org
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL SUSTAINABILITY 9(4) 2011
PAGES 479483, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14735903.2011.607609 #2011 Earthscan | Taylor & Francis Group | an Informa business. ISSN: 1473-5903 (print), 1747-762X (online). www.tandfonline.com/tags
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Marcantonio, 2010). This could be associated with the
low enrolment in higher-education institutions where
women comprise only 33% of total enrolments in
SSA(Kwesiga, 2002). Kwesiga (2002) further explains
practices such as marriage and the payment of bride
wealth, and structures like the family contributes to
the continued marginalization of women from edu-
cation generally, and higher education more speci-
cally. She also identies parental attitudes, societal
norms, socio-economic conditions and higher edu-
cation models as factors that affect womens access to
educational. Of concern too is the diminishing female
participation and corresponding career advancement
in science and technology systems a phenomenon
known as the leaky pipeline (Huyer and Westholm,
2007). The underrepresentation of women in agricul-
ture research has been identied as a signicant
drawback in improving agricultural output (Meinzen-
Dick et al., 2010). For example, the former UN
Secretary General, Ko Annan stated that a green
revolution in Africa will happen only if there is a
gender revolution (AWARD, 2007). Expressing
similar sentiments Rajiv Shah, Administrator for the
United States Agency for International Development
(USAID), noted that women scientists can help bring
practical, sustainable improvements to the African
farm sector so that smallholder farmers many of
whom are women can build better lives for
themselves and their families (Rajiv Shah, 2007).
In this commentary, we share our mentoring part-
nership experiences through the African Women in
Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD)
programme, a model that has potential for scaling
out to other developing countries and organizations
with an aim of creating a critical mass of skilled
women scientists in agricultural research and develop-
ment (R&D). The empowerment of women by
AWARD is based on three cornerstones including
mentoring partnerships, technical capacity building
and leadership skills development. AWARD is a pro-
gramme of the Gender & Diversity Program of the
Consultative Group on International Agricultural
Research (CGIAR) supported by Bill & Melinda
Gates Foundation and USAID.
Experiences and lessons
Mentoring partnerships
For women to make it to the top in management, they
must do a number of things: developing and demon-
strating self-condence, owning their success,
negotiating for themselves, being part of decision
making and continuing to contribute in a productive
way (Sandberg, 2010). Mentoring is a proven and
powerful driver for career development, particularly
for retaining women in science (Zea and Belgrave,
2009; AWARD, 2011). Mentoring is a process for
the transmission of knowledge, social capital and
the psychological support perceived by the recipient
as relevant to work, career or professional develop-
ment. It is between a person with wider relevant
knowledge, wisdom or experience (the mentor) and
a person with more conned experience (mentee)
(Bozeman and Feeney, 2007). The relationship is
developmental in that the older peers goal is to
help guide the mentees development in domains
such as interpersonal skills, self-esteem, and conven-
tional connectedness and attitudes (e.g. future motiv-
ation, optimism) (DuBois and Michael, 2005). Zea
and Belgrave from their mentorship and research
capacity building programme designed to support
ethnic minority researchers at the University of Cali-
fornia, San Francisco learnt that a portion of success
comes from persistence, patience, willingness to
learn and hard work. These traits are benecial in
most academic and research settings (Zea and Bel-
grave, 2009). Research has shown that employees
who are paired with a mentor are twice as likely to
remain in their jobs than those who do not receive
mentorship (Rini et al., 2007).
In an attempt to empower women, Deloitte has
created the Womens Initiative for Leadership Learn-
ing (WILL), which facilitates mentoring between
women with established careers and women new to
the workforce. Members gain exclusive access to
unique personal mentoring opportunities, networking
and learning events, and a comprehensive website
with content on issues of relevance to both established
and emerging female business leaders. With this pro-
gramme, WILL builds a legacy of professional and
personal support to the next generation of female lea-
dership. WILL focuses on commitment, not compe-
tition, personal growth, not promotions and plums
and leadership and learning, not power (Alberta
Venture, 2011). Like WILL, AWARD pairs each
mentee with a senior scientist who is able to support
the fellows career development. While the mentees
must be women, mentors can be of either gender. As
a mentoring pair (Njenga is Mentee and Pinto
Mentor) matched under the AWARD programme in
2009 for one year, the pair decided to continue their
mentoring relationship which has developed into a
strong, healthy and mutually benecial partnership.
M. Njenga and Y. Pinto 480
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL SUSTAINABILITY
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Both have learnt that for a mentoring partnership to
work effectively there must be trust, respect, con-
dence, understanding and accessibility. Our lessons
echo the ndings by Detsky and Baerlocher that men-
torship relationships works well if the pair has each
others support and attention should be given early
on to how the mentee and the mentor mesh and
work together (Detsky and Baerlocher, 2007). Men-
torship yields better results when the pair clearly
articulates mentoring needs, listens to each other
and the mentee takes the lead to undertake actions.
A mentor brings out the best in a mentee by seeing
her potential beyond what she currently is, caring
about what is important to her and reassuring,
encouraging and motivating their mentee. For
example, of the mentee in the pair described within
this commentary, the mentor said, Mary is a natural
self starter and has amicably seized opportunities
that have been brought to her attention including pre-
senting on international platforms. An effective men-
torship requires development of a life purpose road
map for the mentee that stipulates vision, objectives
and activities that guides the process while allowing
monitoring, feedback sharing and learning.
Challenges to effective mentoring
In most circumstances, mentors are drawn from the
same country and discipline that would be helpful to
the mentee. In other circumstances this may vary. In
our case, we were drawn together from different
countries and disciplines, which we nevertheless
found to be a constructive match. However, we did
have concerns about whether such a pairing would
work. The mentor describes these concerns and how
they were overcome:
When we were rst matched I was concerned that
there may be challenges to providing adequate
support to AWARD mentees particularly as Mary
is based in Nairobi and I am based in the UK and
have a tight schedule. However, the use of
modern technology helped to broker a workable
arrangement and by incorporating a more exible
schedule I was able to be up to date with the key
developments in Marys career and development.
The mentee echoed these initial concerns:
I too was concerned that Yvonne may not be able to
give enough attention to my mentoring needs given
her busy schedule and I was unsure if she would
understand me and allow me to speak my mind
without my feeling intimidated or insecure.
Various forms of fear on whether the mentorship
would work may occur but a positive attitude, build-
ing condence and trust in each other and an open
and friendly interaction helps offset the fear. Email,
telephone calls, mobile phone SMS (texting) and
seizing every opportunity that brings the pair face to
face helps make a distant mentorship work well.
Skyping via video makes it a much warmer experi-
ence. Zea and Belgrave (2009) indicate that a potential
barrier to the development of the mentee could arise
from a mismatch between a mentor and the mentee.
This mismatch could be attributable to differing pro-
fessional interests, perspectives and personalities.
Technical capacity building
Because of limited nancial resources in African insti-
tutions of higher learning and research capacity build-
ing for staff in the most up-to-date agricultural science
and technology is not always a priority. However,
research capacity building is critical to ensuring sus-
tainable research and development within the agricul-
tural eld. The AWARDprogramme has had immense
success in building the research capacity of African
women through trainings and research placement in
scientic institutions around the globe (AWARD,
2011). These technical trainings benet both the
mentees and the mentors. So far, the programme has
reached 180 women fellows, with 95 women and 85
men acting as mentors.
Some of the critical skills required by agricultural
researchers include the ability to publish and commu-
nicate their research ndings. The AWARD pro-
gramme has been instrumental in enhancing
beneciaries writing skills. Personally, my scientic
writing and communication skills have improved tre-
mendously through the courses that I have attended as
an AWARD fellow. Yvonne has also helped through
reviewing my work and by encouraging me to adopt
self educating processes and provided me with rel-
evant reading and audio visual materials said Mary.
Post-MSc/MA and PhD fellows compete for research
placement in any organization in the world for hands
on training in specic skills benecial to their work in
agricultural R&D. I will be attached to the Depart-
ment of Energy and Environmental Technology,
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU)
for seven months for capacity building on biomass
energy and environment which is my eld of special-
ization said Mary. Inspiring young women through
role modelling to consider careers in agricultural
science is important if the number of women in this
profession is to rise. To this effect, Mary starred a
Commentary: building science and leadership skills in African women 481
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lm called PURPOSE in September 2010 as part of
her role modelling event which is available on the
AWARD Website.
Similar efforts to encourage women to take careers
in research are being carried out by Women in Science
and Engineering (WISE) in New Yorks Stony Brook
State University. This programme engages women
who have ability and interest in mathematics,
science or engineering and are particularly excited
and willing to take on the challenge of research in
these elds. It offers a combination of curricular and
extracurricular activities, such as hands-on research
experience from the rst year on, membership in
small study groups led by advanced undergraduate
women junior mentors, individual academic advi-
sors, frequent interaction with faculty and numerous
social activities that range from guest lecturers to
eld trips. The students who participate in the pro-
gramme become part of a community of women
scientists that also includes women graduate
students, faculty and scientists from Brookhaven
National Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
and industry (Stony Brook State University of
New York, 2011).
Leadership skills development
Accessing and retaining key talent is a critical driver
of long-term success and investing in advancement
of women in leadership is a global issue. A good
example can be found in the $1 million funding by
PricewaterhouseCoopers to help the Center for
Women and Business at Bentley University, develop
and retain women leaders at all stages of their
careers. This initiative is aimed at helping women
realize their greatest ambitions to assume top leader-
ship roles in the business, non-prot and public
policy spheres through education, leadership and
advocacy (PwC, 2011). Performance in diversity
management has been taken seriously by DiversityInc
Top 50 Companies for Diversityw that conducts
surveys on more than 500 companies in the USA,
and in 2011 PricewaterhouseCoopers ranked third
(DiversityInc, 2010).
The process of listening to and learning from
female farmers can be facilitated by increasing the
representation of women in agricultural policymaking
bodies (Quisumbing et al., 1995). One way to increase
womens participation in decision making is to build
on their leadership skills. In his research at nearly
200 large, global companies, Goleman (1995) found
that while the qualities traditionally associated
with leadership such as intelligence, toughness,
determination, and vision are required for success,
they are insufcient. Truly effective leaders are also
distinguished by a high degree of emotional intelli-
gence, which includes self-awareness, self-regulation,
motivation, empathy, and social and ethical skill.
These leadership skills if instilled in women scientists
in agricultural R&D would go a long way towards the
elimination of hunger and poverty in SSA. However,
Fisher (2005) describes women as having natural
leadership talents such as remarkable facilities for
networking, collaboration, empathy, inclusion and
sharing power along with their executive social
skills. These traits are impressive as there is increasing
competitive demands of technical leaders with varied
skills, and companies are looking for technology
workers with more experience and a broader set of
skills such as leadership and interpersonal communi-
cation skills (Overby, 2006).
AWARD mentors and mentees also attend a
womens leadership course and continue to draw on
its teachings in our day to day work for the rest of
our careers.
Towards building my leadership skills, I have learnt
two principles from Yvonne have the courage to
be yourself and always trust your judgment
which I remember daily and they have improved
my decision making, assertiveness, condence
and belief in myself, owning my success and build-
ing more condent negotiation skills
said Mary. Agricultural R&D in SSA to some extent
depends on donor funding and if women have to be
inuential leaders, they must raise funds. Having
appreciated and experienced this myself I am
guiding Mary for the 21st century fund raising and
I am helping coach her on developing a fund raising
strategy, writing for fundraising and building an
awareness of the essentials of fund raising said
Yvonne. Similar to reviewed publications, proposals
risk rejection and it is important not to take it person-
ally which is a great lesson I learned from Yvonne
said Mary. Two characteristics among successful
fundraisers are patience and persistence.
Conclusions
Mentorship and capacity building in science are
powerful tools for empowering women towards
greater self-reliance and self-sufciency and control
to remain at the top of their management careers
with a positive correlation between their success and
M. Njenga and Y. Pinto 482
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL SUSTAINABILITY
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likability. AWARDs unique science, mentorship and
leadership capacity-building model could be scaled
out to many developing countries and in various
organizations working in R&D. Mentoring is
rewarding to both people, personally and profes-
sionally and its success depends on the pairs commit-
ment to professional development and passion in
transferring skills. Though still in lower numbers
than men, a critical mass of female agricultural scien-
tists exist in Africa and what needs to be done is to
encourage them into and retain them in leadership
positions.
Acknowledgements
The authors render respective thanks to the support pro-
vided in setting up and servicing this mentorship part-
nership to African Women in Agricultural Research
and Development (AWARD) which has support from
the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the US
Agency for International Development (USAID).
AWARD is working tirelessly to ensure the empower-
ment of African women in Agricultural R&D and the
authors wish to acknowledge AWARDs unique and
continued success in this noble undertaking.
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