The 2016 GREAT course focuses on Gender-Responsive Root, Tuber and Banana (RTB) Breeding. GREAT courses have a focus on sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and are offered to multi-disciplinary project teams.

GREAT applied gender training for agricultural researchers offers tailored skills development in gender-responsiveness for the design, implementation, evaluation, and communicationstages of agricultural research projects. GREAT courses are tailored to specific agriculture disciplines and value chains, offering gender training linked to practice in agricultural research, targeted to research communities. The courses are designed to balance the depth of theory needed to internalize concepts with practical tools to apply in ongoing projects. GREAT aims to equip research teams with tools and skills to act, and move beyond “gender sensitization”.

Course Objectives

The 2016 Gender-responsive RTB Breeding course covers the following learning objectives:

• Identify gender-based constraints and opportunities along the RTB value chains
• Frame gender research questions that focus on key gender issues relevant to RTB breeding
• Design gender-responsive RTB breeding research projects recognizing the contributions and impacts of breeding products on women and men
• Choose and use tools for collecting relevant sex-disaggregated qualitative and quantitative data (mixed methods)
• Analyze, interpret, learn from and report sex-disaggregated data, triangulating mixed methods and making course corrections if necessary
• Work in multi-disciplinary teams of agricultural researchers and gender researchers
• Develop gender-responsive M&E (monitoring and evaluation) indicators and a learning agenda to track changes and measure project outcomes
• Track change to demonstrate how including gender-responsive technology development and dissemination impacts women’s empowerment
• Provide gender-sensitive facilitation and feedback to communities
• Develop budgets to include gender research and analyses
• Perform gender-responsive stakeholder analyses and impact pathway mapping
• Communicate and capably present evidence to different audiences, including policy makers and peer-reviewed publications

Delivery Approach

GREAT uses a blended model of two face-to-face training events with field work and e- mentoring and learning in between, structured in three parts:

1. Week 1 (face-to-face training): an introductory module on general theory and concepts of gender-responsiveness and applied instruction on qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis approaches –12^th-21^st September 2016
2. Practice (field application): practice with collection of qualitative and quantitative sex-disaggregated data from ongoing projects, supported by e-learning and e-mentoring-anytime between September 2016 and February 2017
3. Week 2 (face-to-face training): a data analysis, interpretation, and feedback/advocacy module- 13^th-17th February 2017

Participating teams must complete all three parts for individuals in that team to qualify for certification. All face-to-face instruction will take place in Kampala, Uganda.

Eligibility

• GREAT courses are offered to research teams of up to three (3) people per research project.
• For the 2016 offering on gender-responsive RTB breeding, applicant project teams must be engaged in funded and ongoing RTB breeding projects in SSA.
• Participant team members should be RTB scientists, both women and men, from NARIs,universities, CGIAR centers, regional organizations, NGOs and other agricultural research entities based in SSA.
• In addition to RTB scientists, teams should also include gender researchers (social scientists) involved in the target projects, as well as M&E specialists where possible. As GREAT courses emphasize interdisciplinarity, priority will be given to project teams that include gender researchers and M&E specialists.
• No prior experience in gender research is necessary.
• Course instruction will be in English.
• NOTE: The GREAT course requires field data collection between Week 1 and Week 2. It is important that the applicant team’s project can support small-scale (pre-test level) gender data collection in the field. If a team does not have access to funding for field work, but shows exceptional research design and planning, the GREAT course will supply small grants to support field work on a competitive basis.

How to Apply

The application for the Gender-Responsive RTB Breeding course has closed. For more information, please contact Hale Ann Tufan (.