THE GENDER AND DIVERSITY PROGRAM LEADS AND SUPPORTS conferences and workshops on gender and diversity topics. The majority of our events are open to both CGIAR staff as well as partner organizations.
Upcoming Events
(Scroll down for information on past events)
Women's Leadership Courses
(For women working with the CGIAR and partner institutions)
Dates: 6 - 12 September 2009
Venue: Los Banos, Philippines - hosted by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI)
Cost: Approximately US$4,000 for tuition and all course materials. Travel, accomodation and meals paid separately.
NB: All related costs must be covered by the participants' institutions.
For information and to make reservations, email Pauline Bomett at p.bomett@cgiar.org
The Women's Leadership Series
The Women's Leadership and Management Course
Duration: seven days
Estimated fee: US$4,000 exclusive of travel and accommodation
Facilitation: The Training Resources Group (TRG)
This course is designed to reinforce the skills needed to build leadership and managerial effectiveness of women scientists and professionals working in research and development in the CGIAR and partner organizations. Gender and its implications are woven throughout the course, but there is also focus on specific skills areas, including: sustaining team performance, managing conflict, and building alliances to achieve research and business results. Nearly 300 CGIAR women have attended this highly-valued course thus far, and demand remains high. To meet this demand, G&D is offering two rounds of this course in 2009 (details in 'Upcoming Events' above). Early registration is recommended to avoid disappointment.
The venue for this course rotates around the globe, thus lowering regional travel costs. All costs are the responsibility of each sponsoring organization; the G&D Program is unable to offer financial support.
More on the CGIAR Women's Leadership and Management Course
Enhancing Leadership: Negotiation Skills for Women
Duration: Three-and-a-half days.
Estimated fee: Approximately US$2,500 per participant, plus travel and room and board
This course was established at the request of CGIAR women who had completed the Women's Leadership and Management Course (described above) and wanted further training in negotiation. The Gender and Diversity Program offers the negotiation course in collaboration with the Center for Gender in Organizations (CGO). In this course participating women learn the fundamentals of negotiation, look at the ways gender plays out in negotiations, assess their bargaining strengths and weaknesses, and learn how skills of advocacy and connection promote collaboration and problem solving.
The course is led by Dr Deborah Kolb, co-author of The Shadow Negotiation: How Women Can Master the Hidden Agendas That Determine Bargaining Success. Dr Kolb is also a Professor of Management at the Simmons School of Management and Center for Gender in Organizations. Key points of the negotiation course are summarized in this Business Week article featuring Dr Kolb's work.
All related costs must be covered by the participants' institutions.
Advanced Women's Leadership Course
Designed for alumnae of the Annual Women's Leadership Course and for our most senior women, the new 7-day advanced course delves into more complex issues, such as dealing with territorial games and using emotional intelligence to adjust to organizational change. It's also about balance, exploring ways to be both powerful and healthy, and is held at a beautiful beach resort near Mombasa, Kenya.
The course is facilitated by The Training Resources Group (TRG). Participation strictly limited to 20. The estimated course fee is US$4, 200 exclusive of travel and accommodation.
Advanced Course Objectives
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surfacing the leader within and acknowledging your internal source of power, trust, energy and competence
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expanding your repertoire of leadership styles to meet a variety of demands e.g. building collaborative relationships, leading teams, aligning and motivating others
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developing skills and strategies for dealing with difficult business conversations and managing interpersonal conflict
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recognizing how territorial games can affect leadership effectiveness
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understanding how women are "tested" in their leadership roles and learning how to respond strategically
The Women's Advanced Leadership Course also features a post course website for follow up.
Ongoing Events
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Dignity Advisors Training
Ensuring a workplace of Dignity in the CGIAR
Diversity is one of the great strengths of the CGIAR. Its Centers are staffed by women and men from more than 100 countries representing many different ethnic groups, religions and professional disciplines. This wide range of cultural, professional and personal experience can well serve the complex problems of development-oriented science.
To use this strength to best advantage, all staff members must be able to contribute to their full potential. They need an environment that stimulates – rather than stifles – innovation. They need a “workplace of dignity”. This means Centers must create and sustain an environment where all can work in openness and trust, and in ways that demonstrate they respect and value difference. The Dignity Advisors Training helps CGIAR Centers refine their existing practices, with an emphasis on prevention.
The Dignity Advisors Training is a 3-day intensive and highly interactive workshop, designed to equip Center staff with skills and knowledge for:
• understanding the connection between dignity and innovation,
• meeting the challenges for multinational, multicultural organizations,
• learning how to recognize, prevent and stop inappropriate behavior,
• defining the relative roles of senior management, line managers, HR and individual,
• staff in preventing and stopping inappropriate workplace behavior,
• recognizing why some victims don’t come forward,
• developing and refining guidelines, policy and practices to ensure a workplace of dignity, in all Center locations.
It is conducted by world-class external facilitators together with Vicki Wilde and Marco Noordeloos of G&D.
Click here for the Dignity Advisors brochure
Mentoring Program for Young Scientists
The CGIAR's greatest diversity is among its young scientists, and mentoring is shown to be one of the most effective ways for integrating minority and mainstream groups. Mentoring also is a time-honored practice among scientists for linking the wisdom of the more experienced to those with new ideas. G&D provides benchmarking of good practice (do's and don'ts), orientation materials for mentors and mentees, assistance with scoping each center's mentoring needs and resources, and training for the mentoring program coordinators.
More on G&D's Mentoring Program
G&D's orientation materials for mentors and mentees (G&D Working Papers, Nos 42-45)
Other at-cost G&D services
Online Course for High-Performance Research Teams
The CGIAR Gender and Diversity Program has conducted a number of online courses for diversity-rich CGIAR research teams whose members are distributed around the globe. The increasing demand for partnerships among far-flung organizations, a relative scarcity of talent, resources and funding, and the need for fast results has heightened the demands on CGIAR research teams. At the same time, those teams are becoming more diversified by organization, discipline, culture, language, gender and more. The evolving sophistication of electronic communication and collaboration technology also is spawning a new type of "virtual team". The purpose of this Online Course is to enhance research teams' abilities to:
• achieve both their scientific and development goals
• work effectively with partners
• improve information sharing
• clarify decision-making dynamics
• strengthen all team members' contributions
• support distributed (multi-location) teams through understanding online interaction tools and processes
• work with diversity issues on-line
• work together on-line
This Web-based course is facilitated by Nancy White of Full Circle Associates with an international team and diversity experts Sue Canney Davison and Phil Merry, and supported by Vicki Wilde, G&D Program Director.
More on G&D's Online Course for High-Performance Research Teams
Other at-cost G&D services
G&D Associates Workshop
It’s an inspiring week of mutual learning. This annual event provides our Gender and Diversity Associates (GDAs) the opportunity to gather together and take stock of each Center’s progress on its gender and diversity goals, featuring the GDAs’ own best examples of achievement. G&D provides new ideas, tools and information for tackling the next round of challenges. This forum blends the voices and experiences of scientists and HR managers, plus other CGIAR System Office Units.
GDAs are the living links between G&D and the Centers. The role of GDAs is to support dialogue and active consultation between centers and the systemwide G&D Program. In its new strategy for 2005-2008, Leveraging Global Diversity for Global Impact, G&D committed to helping centers institutionalize inclusive workplace policies and practices, and to integrate gender and diversity practices into their core work.
Cognizant that insititutionalizing requires strengthening internal capacities, G&D commits resources to strengthen and support each Center's internal change agents for gender and diversity work.
Past Events
G&D Networking Event at the CGIAR AGM in Maputo, Mozambique - 2008'
The G&D annual networking event focused on "what young scientists want from our organizations." Three young professionals spoke at the event. They are:
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Nadia Manning-Thomas, a Gender & Diversity Associate (GDA) at the International Water Management Institute (IWMI)
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Isilda Nhantumbo, an AWARD fellow from Mozambique
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Balasubramanian (Bala) Ramani, coordinator of the Young Professionals' Platform for Agricultural Research for Development (YPARD)
Bala urged organizations to involve young people in decision making while Isilda emphasized the need to coach, encourage and challenge young professionals. Nadia voiced the importance of making room for young people in research structures. "Someone believed in me, someone gave me a chance," said Nadia as she shared her personal experience. To read Nadia's speech, click here.
Read more about their inspiring stories by visiting the blog set up by the CGIAR Information and Communication Technology and Knowledge Management Program (ICT-KM).
G&D-Rockefeller Fellowships for Enhancing the Careers of East African Women Scientists
This fellowship program for women crop scientists working in national agricultural research institutes (NARIs) and universities in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda was supported by The Rockefeller Foundation and implemented by G&D.
The innovative fellowship program was designed to support professional growth in both scientific expertise and people management, thus facilitating the development of female science leaders and strengthening their institutions. The Program was implemented in two overlapping cycles of two years each, over a three-year period from July 2005 to April 2008.
More on the G&D-Rockefeller Fellowships for East African Women Scientists
The Bellagio Conference 'Succesful Women, Successful Science'
Sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation, the Bellagio Conference 'Successful Women, Successful Science' offered a unique opportunity to bring together the heads of top women-in-science programs worldwide to exchange ideas, share case studies and strategize about new opportunities to enable women scientists to reach their full potential in research and to advance in their careers. Our emphasis is on women scientists in developing countries, but we are especially seeking ways to expand and strengthen the capacity of African women agricultural scientists to contribute to Africa's Green Revolution. The Conference was organized by the CGIAR Gender & Diversity Program and was held at the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Study and Conference Center.
Gender and Diversity Associates Jamboree
'Going for Great in 2008'
The ‘Going for Great in 2008’ GDA Jamboree was held from 2-8 June 2007, and hosted by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) in Patancheru, India. The Jamboree’s theme emphasized on next year’s major review of status and progress of Gender & Diversity goals at all Centers. Over 40 Gender and Diversity Associates (GDAs) from 14 Centers participated to make this Jamboree successful and productive.
The overall objective of theJamboree was to review the status of G&D goals of each Center and build the capacity of GDAs to identify and achieve new high-impact goals.
Going For Great Jamboree Report
Dignity Advisors Training
In 2007, G&D delivered three Dignity Advisors courses. Some 70 CGIAR staff participated bringing to the number of CGIAR staff who have so far been trained as Dignity advisors to 86. The main objective of this training program is to equip the participants with knowledge and skills to effectively serve as a Dignity Advisors in the workplace. This highly interactive training covers such areas as harassment, sexual harassment, discrimination, and abuse of power. The training is rated highly positive by participants, and helps to prevent and eliminate these undesirable behaviours from the CGIAR work place
Changing from the Inside Out E-Conference
The changing from Inside Out 2006 global e-conference was the 4th in a strategic series of events (F2F and online) launched by G&D in 2004 following its EPMR in which it was advised that G&D find new ways to: (a) increase the accountability of senior management for gender and diversity results, and (b) to reach staff not yet participating in G&D activities.
Themes and activities included:
Center Goals – monitoring guidelines were sent to Centers well ahead of the conference with the results shared and discussed during the e-conference;
GDA Orientation – a combination of creative tutorials (G&D movie, G&D Website treasure hunt) and facilitated discussions (frequently asked questions and answers); Diversity Tutorials – two new innovative online diversity tutorials, the first on multicultural time management and the second on multicultural meetings;
The Role of Men in Gender and Diversity Work – provocative propositions were used to generate discussion and deeper thinking about men vis-à-vis gender and diversity work.
E-conference Summary.
Personal Stories from CGIAR Women on Work-Life Balance
Speakers: Ruth Meinzen-Dick, Enrica Porcari and Vicki Wilde
Date: 26 October 2004
During the CGIAR's Annual General Meeting in Mexico City, Mexico in October 2004, G&D sponsored informal presentations on the challenges of work-life balance. Featured here are unscripted and heartfelt stories about juggling it all, available via video streaming. It's almost as good as having been there! This video stream is over one hour. We strongly suggest that you skip the first 17 minutes and stop after the presentations, when it all turns into a party! To access the video stream, go to http://www.cgiar.org/meetings/agm04/videos.html. Scroll down to 'Women's Networking Event' and click. To view the videostreaming you need RealPlayer, freely downloadable at the same website above
Looking Forward E-conference
Dates: 25 March to 8 April 2004
The Gender and Diversity hosted the G&D Looking Forward E-conference was an important participatory step in strategic planning for gender and diversity work in the CGIAR for the next four years. The E-conference brought together 146 CG staff members: 68% female and 32% male.
The discussions were organized around a series of events and provocative propositions, energized by a number of video clips featuring a cross-section of CG leaders and staff.
The e-conference produced some very strong conclusions including:
• a priority objective to attract and retain senior women;
• a strong call for improved accountability on the part of the Centers and Boards; and,
• Selection of five top strategic objectives for G&D for the next four years
Summary report of the E-conference: 
Be Your Own Mentor: Special Session with Sheila Wellington, Catalyst President
Special Event in October 2001
The Gender and Diversity Program organized a special CGIAR Women's Networking Event at the World Bank in October 2001 and invited Sheila W Wellington, President of Catalyst, the USA's premier, non-profit research and advisory organization on women's private sector leadership. Ms Wellington's presentation was on her book, Be Your Own Mentor. The book details the insights of top working women and acts as a stand-in mentor for women until they find one - or become one themselves. Having broken new ground for women in her own career, Ms Wellington identifies strongly with women's efforts to advance.
A video tape of Sheila Wellington's presentation is available (for the CGIAR Centers only) upon request to Pauline Bomett at p.bomett@cgiar.org.
Diversity in Action E-conference for Directors General and Their Teams
Dates: April-May 2001
This e-conference pioneered an effective, efficient mode of working with directors general and their teams on issues of gender and diversity. Conducted 24 hours a day over a two-week period, the e-conference brought together 90 participants from all CGIAR Centers into one virtual space. The e-conference featured a series of innovative events for exploring the meaning and significance of diversity issues at the individual, team and organizational levels. The virtual event included an 'Ask the Experts' session in which participants could pose tough diversity questions to an on-line panel of international diversity experts. A 'cybrary' of key materials offered background information and added depth. In addition to increased understanding and commitment, the e-conference produced: (a) a new, systemwide vision for gender and diversity that is more comprehensive and inclusionary than previous efforts [G&D vision]; and (b) a new G&D work plan that included G&D activities chosen by the Centers themselves.
For a copy of the CD and Users' Guide 'Diversity in Action E-conference for Directors General and Their Teams', contact Pauline Bomett at: p.bomett@cgiar.org.
See also Creating Connection Online (G&D Working Paper No 34 PDF - 2,678KB), for a review of the lessons learned while setting up and facilitating this e-conference.
Working with Diversity for Excellence and Impact
Dates: 18-22 September 2000
Venue: ICRAF, Nairobi, Kenya
This workshop brought together gender and diversity focal points from all the CGIAR Centers with a world-class panel of diversity experts to focus on sharing positive, practical tools and methods for diversity work. The workshop introduced appreciative inquiry, cultural values checklists, multicultural organization assessments, and other approaches. Using methods of strategic planning, participants identified their own gender and diversity priorities and drafted center-level diversity strategies. Issues and diversity tools are summarized in Workshop Summary: CG Centers Working with Diversity for Excellence and Impact", Nairobi, Kenya, 18-22 September 2000 (G&D Working Paper No 27 PDF - 1,158KB).
