Dr Scovia Adikini is among 47 women plant breeders from 14 African countries selected for a two-year fellowship, while Makerere University will help strengthen gender-responsive agricultural research and training.
A Ugandan crop scientist has been selected for a new Africa-wide fellowship supporting women plant breeders, as Makerere University partners in a programme aimed at making agricultural research more responsive to the needs of women and men farmers.
Dr Scovia Adikini, a principal research officer at the National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO), is among 47 women breeders from 14 African countries selected for the Gender Responsive Research for Optimized Women-led Breeding Systems (GROW) Fellowship.
The cohort was announced on Thursday, October 22, 2026, in Nairobi, Kenya, during the launch of the Gender Responsive and Women-Led Research and Development Programme by African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD).
Adikini said she hoped the fellowship would strengthen her leadership and management skills, improve her ability to negotiate and mobilise resources, and prepare her to mentor young scientists.
“By the end of the Fellowship, I hope to have gained new leadership and management skills, strengthened my ability to negotiate and mobilize resources, and become a mentor to young scientists,” she said.
The programme is implemented by AWARD in partnership with Makerere University and Cornell University, with funding from the Gates Foundation.
Makerere will contribute its experience in integrating gender into agricultural education through university courses and a master’s programme.
The experience will inform efforts with universities in Ethiopia, Kenya and Nigeria to review curricula and teaching approaches so that future agricultural scientists can apply gender-responsive methods in crop breeding.
“Nobody is starting from zero,” AWARD Director Dr Susan Kaaria said, highlighting the programme’s emphasis on sharing lessons and peer learning.
Research organisations in the participating countries will also assess gender gaps in their policies and practices, develop action plans and train staff.
The programme seeks to address the underrepresentation of women in senior research and management positions, where priorities are set, resources allocated and policy decisions made. In West and Central Africa, women account for less than 15 per cent of plant breeders, according to AWARD.
Kaaria said agricultural research needed to consider both the needs of farmers and the people conducting the research.
“Understanding what women and men farmers need is essential to developing agricultural innovations they can use,” she said.
“However, gender responsive breeding does not only consider the representation, voice and agency of women farmers within crop improvement design, development and delivery, but should also consider who is conducting the crop breeding research.”
The programme also seeks to address low uptake of improved crop varieties among women smallholder farmers. When breeding programmes fail to account for their priorities, the resulting varieties may be less likely to be adopted or sustained.
Over the next two years, fellows will participate in in-person and virtual activities covering leadership, negotiation, integrating gender into breeding research, mentoring, networking and peer learning. The training is intended to help women breeders lead research programmes, mobilise resources and influence decisions about breeding priorities.
Each fellow will be paired with an experienced professional for mentorship and will, in turn, share her learning with an emerging scientist.
“Through this Program, we are addressing a critical priority of supporting women breeders to lead research and working with institutions and universities to ensure that farmers' needs guide their research and the training of future scientists,” Kaaria said.
Since its establishment in 2008, AWARD has graduated more than 1,200 fellows and worked with about 460 institutions across 26 African countries.
