As part of the CGIAR’s reform process, all previous system-wide programs will be folded into the new CGIAR Consortium Office in Montpellier, France. This includes the CGIAR Gender & Diversity (G&D) Program, which closed as of July 31, 2012.
Since 1999, G&D provided services for the 8,000 scientists, technicians, and managers in the 15 Centers members of the CGIAR Consortium worldwide. G&D’s mission was to help research organizations leverage their rich staff diversity in order to increase research and management excellence. G&D helped ensure that gender and diversity issues were fully integrated into the organization’s activities, policies, and programs. Examples included G&D’s renowned diversity-positive recruitment services, women’s leadership courses, multicultural mentoring programs, and inclusive workplace policy models.
This change brings an opportunity for new leadership, energy, and approaches. Although G&D is closing, the workplace issues of gender and diversity are included in the Consortium’s new gender strategy. The most popular intellectual assets developed by G&D are being made publicly available through the CGIAR Library, including inclusive workplace model policies, G&D’s working paper series, and more.
The G&D project, African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD) will continue as a CGIAR preferred service provider, based at the World Agroforestry Centre in Nairobi, Kenya. AWARD will deliver the women’s leadership courses previously offered by G&D.
We would like to thank former G&D director, Vicki Wilde, and her team for their outstanding service and commitment to this pioneering program. Vicki Wilde now directs AWARD which is embarking on its second phase after five years of success and recently launched a new call for applications.
Read more about G&D achievements and input to the Consortium Strategy in the Progress Report 2010-2012.