Co-hosted by:

Devex         IFAD 

     


About the event

Women are major contributors to agriculture and rural economies, and their work and lives are not immune to the effects of the global pandemic. Restrictions on movement, increased caretaking duties, and increased incidences of gender-based violence all reduce livelihood opportunities during this time. Lower income can create secondary effects, as women typically invest in education, health care and business reinforcement.

Every year, on October 15, the UN’s family of countries celebrate the social, economic, and political progress made by 1.7 billion women and girls who live in rural areas. Member countries also call attention the ways to prevent, mitigate and eliminate the discrimination, marginalization and violence faced by tens of millions of rural and indigenous women.

Effective development and violence prevention interventions include supporting women’s livelihoods in smallholder farming, fishing, livestock-keeping and rural entrepreneurship; enabling greater access to land, credit and other productive resources; strengthening women’s representation in producers’ organizations and community decision-making bodies and working with rural men to create positive behavior change.

To coincide with the United Nations’ International Day of Rural Women, the International Fund for Agricultural Development and Devex hosted a virtual event to elevate the experience of rural women working in the agriculture and food sectors during COVID-19 and to explore effective response methods in this time of crisis.
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The Speakers

Moderator

Spongebob Squarepants

Fry Cook/Waiter
Krusty Krab
Daylight was going, and the dusky air was now releasing from their weary toil all living things on earth; and I alone was making ready to sustain the war both of the road and of the sympathy, which my unerring memory will relate.

O Muses, O high Genius, help me now! O Memory, that wrotest what I saw, herewith shall thy nobility appear!

Sabrina Dhowre Elba

United Nations’ Goodwill Ambassador
IFAD
Sabrina Dhowre Elba is an actress, activist and model. She was appointed a United Nations’ Goodwill Ambassador for IFAD in April 2020. Born in Canada, of Somali descent, Elba has been featured on the cover of British Vogue, Sunday Times Style and Harrods Magazine, and has been a guest presenter for ITV’s Good Morning Britain. She is passionate about gender equality and promoting the empowerment of rural women and girls worldwide. She has also recently begun work with the First Lady of Sierra Leone on issues related to violence against women in the country. She also works with a variety of civil society organizations, including Conservation International, on environmental issues.

Michelle Kagari

Global Director of Government Relations and Policy
One Acre Fund
Michelle Kagari is the Global Director for Government Relations and Policy at One Acre Fund. One Acre fund is a non-profit Agriculture Service Provider currently assisting over One Million of Africa’s smallholder farm families to dramatically improve their incomes. We do this through a comprehensive agricultural bundle that includes finance, farm inputs, training, and post-harvest support.
One Acre Fund aspires to helping Africa's 50 million smallholder farm families enjoy bigger harvests, nutritious foods and greater prosperity. We currently operate in Kenya, Rwanda, Malawi, Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda and have pilot operations in Zambia, Nigeria, and Ethiopia. The Organization is currently serving over 450,000 smallholder farmers in 22 Counties in Kenya.
Michelle leads OAF’s collaborative approach to working with governments to achieve food security and sustainable livelihoods for smallholder farmers. Michelle has over 20yrs experience in the non-profit sector, working on social justice issues to ensure that under-represented populations are included in decision making and resource allocation, enabling them to realize their full potential.

Anne Nyaga

Chief Administrative Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock Fisheries and Cooperatives
Government of Kenya

Prior to her current role in the Government of Kenya, Anne Nyaga was the County Minister for Agriculture in the County Government of Embu, Chief Executive Officer of the 4-H Kenya Foundation and founder and Chief Executive Officer of Farm2Home Ltd. She is a talented fundraiser, innovator and mentor. 

Passionate about a food secure Africa, Ms. Nyaga has worked in her official and personal capacities with various the Government of Kenya, private sector, international, bilateral and multilateral donor organizations and non-state organizations on several agriculture policy initiatives. She has been a member of various committees and taskforces: National Youth in Agribusiness Strategy Development and Implementation Committee; National Thematic Working Group on Youth in Agriculture; National Coordination Team on Global Open Data on Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN); the Miraa Taskforce Implementation Committee; National Task Force for Development of Agricultural Sector Youth Policy.

Michelle Kagari

Global Director of Government Relations and Policy
One Acre Fund

Prior to her current role as Global Director for Government Relations and Policy with One Acre Fund, Michelle was Deputy Regional Director for Amnesty International (Africa). Michelle is a highly qualified, dynamic leader with expertise in all facets of program planning, development, and implementation, complemented by a keen passion for furthering positive international development and positive social change through community development, collaboration, and advocacy.

She brings a strong record of success facilitating organizational change and building talented, effective teams for Amnesty International and One Acre Fund. She is skilled in partnering with both government and non-government organizations and leveraging advanced knowledge of international law to champion social issues and achieve program objectives. 

Ndaya Beltchika

Lead Technical Specialist, Gender and Social Inclusion
IFAD

Ms Ndaya Beltchika is IFAD's Lead Technical Specialist - Gender, Targeting and Social Inclusion. Her team is within the Environment, Climate, Gender and Social Inclusion Division (ECG). She joined IFAD in that capacity on 16 April 2018. Prior to that, Ms Beltchika was Country Director in the West and Central Africa Division where she led the development of country strategies and provided oversight and coordinated programmes of loans and grants of Benin, Liberia and Sierra Leone. 

Prior to joining IFAD in 2010, Ms Beltchika had more than 25 years of combined experience in private sector development, policy dialogue, rural development and rural finance. Some of her earlier positions include Principal at ES&S Consulting providing business strategy advice to small and medium private institutions; Senior Financial Analyst, in corporate finance, advisor to the CFO and President of Institutional Sales, at Fidelity Investments; and Economist at Associates for International Resources and Development (AIRD) to support policy changes and development programmes in a number of WCA countries.

Ms Beltchika holds a “Bachelor’s +1” in Agronomy from La Faculté des Sciences Agronomique de l’Etat à Gembloux, Belgium, a Master’s degree in Agricultural Economics from the University of California at Davis, California, USA and a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Babson College F. W. Olin Graduate School of Business in Massachusetts, USA.


Nicoline de Haan

Director
CGIAR GENDER Platform
Nicoline de Haan is the director of the CGIAR GENDER (Generating Evidence and New Direction for Equitable Results) Platform. With over 20 years of expertise in gender, rural livelihoods, agriculture, and natural resource management, she is passionate about giving a voice to people and ensuring they can benefit from innovations. In her present position she is responsible for leading the work on gender across a consortium of 14 global agricultural research centers. The GENDER Platform’s vision is a world in which gender equality drives transformation towards equitable, sustainable, productive and climate-resilient food systems. Before joining the Platform, she worked at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) where she led work on gender and livestock. Previous to that, she led the work on gender, poverty and institutions under the CGIAR program on Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE) examining the implications of inequity in access and control over natural resources, and finding options to ensure inclusive benefit sharing. In her previous position at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) she led the global socio-economic team on animal health, where she was tasked with reducing the impact of animal diseases on the livelihoods of smallholders. Prior to that she spent seven years based in Nigeria, working on different agricultural projects throughout the region. She has a Master’s in development sociology from Wageningen Agricultural University, and a PhD in rural sociologist from the University of Missouri, Colombia.

Annie Nyaga

Chief Administrative Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock Fisheries and Cooperatives
Government of Kenya

Prior to her current role in the Government of Kenya, Anne Nyaga was the County Minister for Agriculture in the County Government of Embu, Chief Executive Officer of the 4-H Kenya Foundation and founder and Chief Executive Officer of Farm2Home Ltd. She is a talented fundraiser, innovator and mentor. 

Passionate about a food secure Africa, Ms. Nyaga has worked in her official and personal capacities with various the Government of Kenya, private sector, international, bilateral and multilateral donor organizations and non-state organizations on several agriculture policy initiatives. She has been a member of various committees and taskforces: National Youth in Agribusiness Strategy Development and Implementation Committee; National Thematic Working Group on Youth in Agriculture; National Coordination Team on Global Open Data on Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN); the Miraa Taskforce Implementation Committee; National Task Force for Development of Agricultural Sector Youth Policy.

Pamela Kimkung

Community Mobilization, Training and Gender Officer, Kenya Cereal Enhancement Programme
Climate Resilient Agricultural Livelihoods, Government of Kenya
Pamela is the Community Mobilization Training and Gender Officer at the Kenya Cereal Enhancement Programme – Climate Resilient Agricultural Livelihoods (KCEP CRAL). Under this role, Pamela has promoted the inclusion of women in agricultural production using direct targeting (affirmative action) where 50 % of the beneficiaries are women and youth. Moreover, she has tracked the empowerment of women using the Women Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) tool while promoting decision making, ownership and control in production, income and leadership. Prior to joining KCEP CRAL, Pamela was a Governance and Advocacy Officer at Care International in Kenya.

Ndaya Beltchika

Lead Technical Specialist, Gender and Social Inclusion
IFAD

Ms Ndaya Beltchika is IFAD's Lead Technical Specialist - Gender, Targeting and Social Inclusion. Her team is within the Environment, Climate, Gender and Social Inclusion Division (ECG). She joined IFAD in that capacity on 16 April 2018. Prior to that, Ms Beltchika was Country Director in the West and Central Africa Division where she led the development of country strategies and provided oversight and coordinated programmes of loans and grants of Benin, Liberia and Sierra Leone. 

Prior to joining IFAD in 2010, Ms Beltchika had more than 25 years of combined experience in private sector development, policy dialogue, rural development and rural finance. Some of her earlier positions include Principal at ES&S Consulting providing business strategy advice to small and medium private institutions; Senior Financial Analyst, in corporate finance, advisor to the CFO and President of Institutional Sales, at Fidelity Investments; and Economist at Associates for International Resources and Development (AIRD) to support policy changes and development programmes in a number of WCA countries.

Ms Beltchika holds a “Bachelor’s +1” in Agronomy from La Faculté des Sciences Agronomique de l’Etat à Gembloux, Belgium, a Master’s degree in Agricultural Economics from the University of California at Davis, California, USA and a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Babson College F. W. Olin Graduate School of Business in Massachusetts, USA.


Ujjaini Halim

Executive Director
Institute for Motivating Self Employment (IMSE)
Dr Ujjaini Halim, Executive Director of IMSE has been making active and evident contributions to the social work field for youth empowerment since the inception of her career (last 25 years). Her exposure to social issues started at an early age due to her active involvement with IMSE. She also took membership of Food First Information and Action Network (FIAN) International during her college days and started working on rights issues.

Dr Halim has gathered global experience on economic social cultural rights while collaborating with Rome based UN agencies and UNHRC at Vienna. Through various roles, she has engaged with international organisations like FIAN International (Food First Information and Action Network), Civil Society Mechanism of FAO, Global FAFO of IFAD (International Fund For Agricultural Development) , World Forum of Fish Harvesters and Fish Workers (WFF), Bread For the World - Germany, South Asia Alliance for Poverty Eradication (SAAPE), Asian Peasant Coalition (APC) as per IMSE’s membership, South Asian Peasant Coalition (SAPC), Food Sovereignty Network South Asia (FSNSA).

Office Cat

Mouse Catcher
Quarantine land
And both of these, if one would tell the truth, were foreordained unto the holy place, where greatest Peter’s follower hath his seat. While on this quest, for which thou giv’st him praise, he heard the things which of his victory the causes were, and of the Papal Robe. The Chosen Vessel went there afterward, to bring thence confirmation in the faith, through which one enters on salvation’s path. But why should I go there, or who concedes it? I ’m not Aeneas, nor yet Paul am I; me worthy of this, nor I nor others deem. If, therefore, I consent to come, I fear lest foolish be my coming; thou art wise, and canst much better judge than I can talk.”

Teresa Welsh

Senior Reporter
Devex
Teresa Welsh has reported from more than 10 countries and is currently based in Washington, D.C. Her coverage focuses on Latin America; U.S. foreign assistance policy; fragile states; food systems and nutrition; and refugees and migration. Prior to joining Devex, Teresa worked at McClatchy's Washington Bureau and covered foreign affairs for U.S. News and World Report. She was a reporter in Colombia, where she previously lived teaching English. Teresa earned bachelor of arts degrees in journalism and Latin American studies from the University of Wisconsin.
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