About GenderUp

GenderUp is a discussion-based method that supports innovation teams to scale agricultural innovations in a gender responsible and socially inclusive way. Current scaling support tools focus on limiting factors and bottlenecks to increase innovation users. But they do so without focusing on limiting factors for different groups of people, including women. 

GenderUp helps generate scaling strategies that incorporate different social experiences. The result? More equitable access to the benefits of innovation.

GenderUp guides innovation teams through 3 workshops to:
1. Identify diversity and intersectionality among intended innovation users from a social and gender perspective.

2. Create a scaling strategy which anticipates unintended (negative) consequences for specific social categories and allows for their adequate mitigation.
It includes several stages that flow through: 
  • defining the innovation and scaling ambition,
  • understanding implications of intersectionality, and ultimately 
  • mitigating consequences and embracing opportunities

3. During each stage, the scaling team engages in guided conversations and sensitizations.
This is intended to help teams: 
  • discover diversity that is relevant to the scaling of their innovation, and 
  • brainstorm on how to adapt their scaling strategy to be more inclusive, or at least anticipate unintended negative consequences for specific social categories. 

At the end of GenderUp, innovation teams should have a scaling strategy that is gender responsible and socially inclusive.

Contact

If you are interested in working with GenderUp and your innovation please contact genderupscaling@gmail.com.

Acknowledgments

Recognizing a gap in focus on gender and other relevant diversity in scaling support tools, the development of GenderUp was funded by the CGIAR Research Programme on Roots Tubers and Bananas (RTB) and also benefited from the Senior Expert Programme funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO).

The team that developed GenderUp was led by Cees Leeuwis (Wageningen University) and Anne Rietveld (Alliance) and further consisted of Erin Mcguire (UCDavis), Bela Teeken (IITA) and Vanya Slavchevska (Alliance).

Useful inputs where provided by innovation teams who tested GenderUp: DryCard Rwanda lead by Seraphin Niyonsenga, and CGIAR Flash Dryer, led by Thierry Tran, and also by Murat Sartas, Graham Thiele, Nozomi Kawarazuka, Mercy Mwambi, Vivian Polar, Marc Schut, Steven Michael Cole, Rhys Manners, Elisabeth Gotor, Anna Muller, Diana Lopez, Luis Alejandro Taborda, Thierry Tran, Arwen Bailey, Eileen Nchanji, Marlene Elias, Sietze Vellema, Ineke Aquarius, Mark van Heck, Luc Dinnissen and Emilie Dewitte.