A regional symposium in Dhaka is exploring the changing roles of men and women in farming and the ways in which boys and girls experience different food choices at the dinner table. The UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is the organiser of the two-day Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) meets tilted “The Role of Gender in South Asian Food Systems Symposium”.
British High Commissioner to Bangladesh Robert Chatterton Dickson welcomed participating delegates from ten countries while inaugurating the meet on Sunday, and said the “UK recognises research and innovation as key drivers for prosperity and sustainability.” “The UK, the country of Newton, Faraday, Alexander Fleming and Stephen Hawking, is one of the world’s most successful research nations, with 133 Nobel Prizes and four of the world’s top 15 universities,” he said.
“As global challenges from climate change to pandemics like coronavirus emerge and evolve, international collaboration is vital and the UK leads the world in field-weighted research citation impact”. GCRF is a £1.5 billion fund started in late 2015 and forms part of the UK government’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) commitment and is overseen by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), and delivered through nine delivery partners including the UKRI.
The UKRI works in partnership with universities, research organisations, businesses, charities, and government to create the best possible environment for research and innovation to flourish. The symposium brought together international researchers, policy makers and civil society organisations from a broad range of disciplines within food systems, gender and international development. They are looking at the role of gender across South Asian food systems, including farming, climate change, nutrition, and food safety.
Dr Tahrat Shahid, GCRF’s joint Challenge Leader for Food Systems and newly appointed Gender Advisor across UKRI’s GCRF portfolios, is leading the symposium. “Understanding how gender roles are a part of food systems, in this case in the South Asian context, is crucial to designing the kind of research that leads to workable solutions to challenges on the ground, like malnutrition, unequal access to resources, climate change, and so much more,” she explained.
“We want to make sure we’re cultivating these sometimes difficult conversations not just among gender specialists but non-specialists too.” She is part of a team of GCRF Challenge Leaders who work internationally across six portfolio areas: global health, food systems, resilience, cities and sustainable infrastructure, education and protracted conflict and refugees.
Their role is to help forge diverse and exciting equitable partnerships between UK researchers and academics, policy makers and community groups across the globe to ensure that GCRF funded research moves the world closer towards achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Commenting on her Gender Advisory role, Prof Helen Fletcher, UKRI’s Director of International Development, said: “With International Women’s Day around the corner, it is timely to emphasis the force for good that gender equality creates.”
“Empowering women and girls through research and innovation is a powerful way to alleviate poverty, promote lasting peace and stability and create a fairer world for us all,” Prof Fletcher said.
