New Documents Online! Please note that the following document has been posted:

Ag Talks Session 5

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) invites you to the Fifth Session of AgTalks on 15 October 2015. The session will take place at IFAD Headquarters, in the Italian Conference Room between 10.00 am and 12.30 pm. A welcome coffee will begin at 9.30 a.m.

R.S.V.P. by e-mail to protocol@ifad.org

AgTalks 5 opens a discussion about what happens when rural women are empowered – economically and socially – and the difference they can make to their families, their communities and their countries.

Speakers

• Ms Clare Bishop-Sambrook is Lead Technical Specialist in Gender and Social Inclusion at IFAD. She leads the Fund’s gender team, which works to ensure that gender equality and social inclusion are mainstreamed in the design and implementation of IFAD-supported projects and programmes, and within the organization. Before she joined IFAD in 2011, Bishop-Sambrook worked as an independent consultant with FAO, ILRI and IFAD on targeting, gender, HIV/AIDS and rural livelihoods, with a particular focus on east and southern Africa. She lectured in agricultural economics, gender and social development in universities in Uganda and the UK for ten years. One of her special areas of interest is promoting household methodologies for gender equality and social inclusion.

• Dr Myrna Cunningham Kain is an Indigenous Miskita woman from the community of Waspam, Nicaragua. She has extensive experience on the rights of Indigenous Peoples. She has been Secretary General of the Indigenous Inter-American Institute and has worked as a consultant to various multilateral, bilateral, governmental and non-governmental organizations on health, education, land, environment and natural resources, racial discrimination, evaluation mechanisms, and international human rights instruments on Indigenous Peoples, among others. She coordinated the Continental Campaign of 500 Years of Indigenous, Black and Popular Resistance in 1992, and in recent decades has been an activist for individual and collective rights of women and men in the Indigenous communities in her country, the Organization of American States and the United Nations. Dr Cunningham Kain is President of the Center for Autonomy and Development of Indigenous Peoples (CADPI), which is an organization working in areas of intercultural communication, cultural revitalisation, Indigenous women’s rights, and climate change and its impact on Indigenous communities. Dr Cunningham Kain served as Chair of the UN Permanent Forum of Indigenous Issues for the period 2011-2013.

• Dr Flower Ezekiel Msuya is a Senior Researcher and Consultant at the Institute of Marine Sciences of the University of Dar es Salaam in Zanzibar, United Republic of Tanzania. Her work focuses on applied research in marine science - specializing in innovative seaweed farming, value addition, health issues of women seaweed farmers, and climate change. In the last ten years her research has focused on modifying seaweed farming methods to address the impact of climate change that affect rural women seaweed farmers. In all her research she has been working consistently with rural women who use the research results to improve their seaweed farming business and thus income. Msuya's work has especially helped marginalized rural women in the United Republic of Tanzania increase their income through production of seaweed value-added products.

• Mr Philip Erick Otieno is a gender activist, trainer, assertiveness and boundaries setting instructor. As an activist he is known face in global conference on gender and development related issues. He currently serves as the Executive Director of Men for Gender Equality Now (MEGEN). Over the last 12 years Otieno has been engaged in raising awareness, lobbying and advocating for human rights and gender issues in Kenya. Furthermore, as trainer, he has been engaged in capacity building activities in Botswana, Malawi, Sierra Leone, United Republic of Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

SAVE THE DATE: AgTalks fifth session

The fifth session of the "AgTalks" series will be held at IFAD headquarters, Via Paolo di Dono 44, Rome, on Thursday, 15 October 2015. The session will take place in the Italian Conference Room between 10.00 am and 12.30 pm.

What is AgTalks?

AgTalks aims at: bringing forward the latest thinking, trends and research regarding policies and innovations in small-scale family farming; influencing policy frameworks in favour of family farmers; and, generating national and global support to promote scaling up of successful policies and programmes.

What is the theme of this session?

The theme of the fifth session of AgTalks is Celebrating rural women Speakers will join the entire world in paying tribute to women and girls in rural areas and the hugely important role that they play in feeding the planet.

Join us at IFAD on 15 October 2015 to take part in this interactive session. Further information will follow.