CGIAR and Partners Launch Innovation Sprint on Gender and Climate Action

December 3, 2023, Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE). CGIAR and partners have committed US$31 million over four years (2023-2027) to ensure that climate innovations in agrifood systems are designed to work for women and rolled out in ways that address underlying gender inequalities.

Together with 20 partners, CGIAR launched the AIM for Climate Innovation Sprint on Addressing Gender Inequality for Effective Climate Action in Agrifood Systems today in Dubai, UAE.

The Sprint will achieve its aims through three main pillars of work: 1) testing new climate innovations that address both climate change and gender inequality; 2) promoting more widespread, inclusive uptake of climate solutions; and 3) developing metrics to measure progress towards these goals.

The announcement was made during the COP28 side event “Tackling gender inequality for effective climate action in food systems”, organized by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), the International Potato Center (CIP), and the CGIAR GENDER Impact Platform.

“The ultimate goal of this Sprint is to strengthen the capacity of low-income countries to design policies and interventions with a combined gender and climate lens,” said Elizabeth Bryan, Senior Scientist at IFPRI.

The Innovation Sprint will build on and amplify the ongoing work of CGIAR, with support from CGIAR Trust Fund Contributors and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). It will also work with partners—from other research organizations, non-governmental organizations, and the private sector—to accelerate the development of agricultural innovations that advance climate resilience and gender equality.

“We must act now to transform agrifood systems to deliver gender equality and increase resilience to climate change,” said Nicoline de Haan, Director of the CGIAR GENDER Impact Platform.

An innovation sprint is a vehicle under AIM for Climate, a joint initiative by the United States and the UAE. Each innovation sprint represents an increase in aggregate self-financed investment from non-government partners to achieve an outcome in agricultural innovation and for climate-smart agriculture and food systems to be completed in an expedited timeframe.

Partners in the Innovation Sprint on Addressing Gender Inequality through Climate Action in Agrifood Systems (as of December 3, 2023):

1. CGIAR (including GENDER and the Climate Impact Platforms, the Research Initiatives on Gender Equality (HER+), Low-Emission Food Systems (Mitigate+), and the Gender, Climate Change, and Nutrition Integration Initiative (GCAN))
2. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
3. ICAR-Indian Veterinary Research Institute
4. United Nations World Food Programme
5. Zambia Alliance of Women (ZAW)
6. Indigenous Women and Girls Initiative
7. University of Reading, United Kingdom
8. Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA)
9. M S Swaminathan Research Foundation
10. Tulinde Boychild Initiative
11. Biodiversity Television Network (BTN-TV) an
12. Groupement des Jeunes Universitaires pour l’Avancement d’Haiti (GJUPAH)
13. East African Crude Oil Pipeline Host Communities (EACOP HC)
14. Center For Minority Rights Development (CEMIRIDE)
15. Easytech Farm Solutions Limited
16. Fairtrade International
17. BAIF Development Research Foundation
18. RTI International
19. AgMIP: Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project
20. Digital Green Foundation
21. E-Farmers Bangladesh Ltd.

For more information about the CGIAR’s Innovation Sprint on Addressing Gender Inequality through Climate Action in Agrifood Systems please reach out to Elizabeth Bryan, Senior Scientist, IFPRI (e.bryan@cgiar.org).

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CGIAR is a global research partnership for a food-secure future, dedicated to transforming food, land, and water systems in a climate crisis. Learn more at www.cgiar.org. We would like to thank all funders who support this research through their contributions to the CGIAR Trust Fund: www.cgiar.org/funders/

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), a research center of CGIAR, provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition. IFPRI’s strategic research aims to identify and analyze alternative international and country-led strategies and policies for meeting food and nutrition needs in low- and middle-income countries, with particular emphasis on poor and vulnerable groups in those countries, gender equity, and sustainability. www.ifpri.org 

For media inquiries please contact: Evgeniya Anisimova, e.anisimova@cgiar.org, +1 (202) 627 4394

Header image: A group of women struggles to get rice in Dhaka, Bangladesh, which faced a severe food shortage after a devastating cyclone in 2007. Credit: Majority World CIC/Alamy.