Accelerating African Women’s Leadership in Climate Action
Increasing women steering climate solutions, enhancing smallholders’ adaptive capacities
The Accelerating African Women’s Leadership in Climate Action Fellowship seeks to achieve a twin goal of increasing the number of African women leading climate change action and catalyze production of climate solutions that work for women smallholders.
Through this Fellowship, AWARD aims to contribute to equitable rural livelihoods by increasing the number of women leaders in climate change producing innovations that address the diverse needs of smallholders in the African agrifood systems.
The Fellowship will foster production and transfer of context-specific knowledge on climate adaptation technologies to different stakeholders including smallholders, extension workers and policymakers.
Objectives
- Strengthen the leadership, mentoring and negotiation skills of African women climate change professionals.
- Enhance the capabilities of African women and men climate change professionals to incorporate gender in their research and practice.
- Amplify the voices and increase visibility of African women climate change professionals in global and regional climate change dialogues.
This fellowship targets high-potential women climate professionals who will be competitively selected to participate as Climate Fellows. Upon their admission into the Fellowship, the Climate Fellows will be paired with seasoned experts working at the nexus between gender, climate change, and agrifood systems and the Climate Fellows will later select early career climate researchers.
The potential Climate Fellows will be competitively identified through a rigorous process that will include responding to an open call, followed by a review and final selection by a panel of experts. The review will focus on applicants’ experience, expertise, knowledge gaps, and contributions to climate adaptation.
The Fellowship is a blended (virtual and face-to-face interventions), non-residential program that will be delivered over a period of two years and will include the following activities:
- Virtual and in-person training events including training in leadership, negotiation and intergenerational mentoring. They will also attend a course on how to integrate gender in climate change interventions.
- Group and individual coaching
- Mentoring program
- Regular peer-to-peer learning sessions
- Participate in regular masterclasses
- Conceptualize and lead collaborative climate projects on gender and climate adaptation known as Climate Research and Innovation Projects (CRIPs).
- Exposure on emerging trends in gender, climate change and agrifood systems
- Speaking opportunities to give seminars and other events
- In-country role modeling events
Participants who complete all the Fellowship activities will receive a certificate of Completion. The Climate Fellows will also join an elite network of experts and food systems champions including AWARD country chapters.
Download the Fellowship brochure for more details about the Fellowship structure.
Download the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).
The Accelerating African Women’s Leadership in Climate Action Fellowship is open to applicants who meet the criteria below:
- African women from Benin, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, and Senegal.
- African women working various disciplines across gender and climate change.
- Have at least a master’s degree in a relevant discipline in agrifood systems.
- Have at least five years working experience, demonstrated interest and contribution in gender and climate change.
- African women at different stages of their professional careers who are actively engaged in finding solutions to the effects of climate change.
- Participants working in national and international organizations including government agencies and non-governmental organizations, and the private sector.
- Applicants must reside in an African country throughout the Fellowship period to be eligible
The call for applications is now closed.
Accelerating African Women’s Leadership in Climate Action is a Fellowship funded by UK aid from the UK government and by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Ottawa, Canada as part of Climate Adaptation and Resilience (CLARE) research programme. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent those of the UK government, IDRC or its Board of Governors.
CLARE is a UK-Canada framework research programme on Climate Adaptation and Resilience, aiming to enable socially inclusive and sustainable action to build resilience to climate change and natural hazards. CLARE is an initiative jointly designed, funded and run by the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office and Canada’s IDRC.
Visit https://clareprogramme.org/ for more information on CLARE