ABSTRACT
Currently, the Consortium of International Agricultural Research Institutes (CGIAR) has a Gender Strategy that was launched in 2011. Obviously, the CGIAR did not start with gender research at zero in 2011, but there is no up-to-date historical analysis available. This chapter makes a start by zooming into the first two decades of the CGIAR that was founded in 1971. It now spans a wide range of public international agriculture-related research centers (IARCs) that are considered key in IARD. First, the changing CGIAR mandate to food security and its main research responses to the unforeseen and critiqued effects of the Green Revolution are explained. New impact and system approaches are presented as opening niches for gender research. The perpetuating yield gaps despite the 1960s Green Revolution urged to widen the prevailing agro-technical research focus. This ‘re-peopling’ of agriculture in research perspectives on agricultural innovation allowed to also integrate women and gender in research on impacts, user perspectives, farming systems, intra-household dynamics, and participatory development. These are analysed for 1970s and 1980s Gender Milestones and various gender reviews and assessments, and concluded in a CGIAR gender timeline. Third, as manifold as the early CGIAR gender approaches, they did not represent a linear development towards progressive gender transformative IARD approaches or change. The various approaches are still around and cause quite confusing discussions. To better distinct and qualify them, an adapted version of the Gender Integration Continuum is suggested with additional methodological aspects to qualify gender transformative IARD approaches. In another graph further distinctions are suggested to help disentangle the tensions and overlaps between gender accommodating and transformative approaches to better develop future meaningful ways to continue in IARD gender research.
