UNIPORT Don Makes Giant Stride in Advancing Gender-Responsive Agricultural Policies

A distinguished academic from the University of Port Harcourt (UNIPORT), Dr. Clara Chinwoke Ifeanyi-Obi, a Cohort 1 Fellow of the prestigious Gender Responsive Agricultural Systems Fellowship (GRASP) of the African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD), has presented her novel gender-responsive framework for validation.

Dr. Ifeanyi-Obi, who heads the Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Development at UNIPORT, unveiled her G-SMART Monitor today at the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, during a presentation held at the Minister’s Conference Room in the Ministry Complex. As part of her Policy Innovation Project under the GRASP Fellowship, she developed the Gender-Responsive SMART Framework (G-SMART Monitor) — a tool designed to assess the gender-responsiveness of agricultural policies, particularly in the context of climate change.

The GRASP Fellowship, implemented by AWARD and funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), aims to catalyze gender-responsive reforms across African agriculture. It supports mid-career African women to influence agricultural policy formulation and implementation. The programme is designed to build a pool of African women policy professionals capable of shaping and driving inclusive agricultural policies across the continent.

The broader goal of the programme is to increase women’s participation and leadership in agricultural policy spaces, ensuring that policies address the needs of both male and female farmers while promoting climate-resilient agriculture.