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Promoting the inclusion of more African women in science

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To view images of the Gender Equity in Science grantees and AAS staff at the grant inception and orientation meeting held in November 2019, click here.

 

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DELTAS Africa — the Developing Excellence in Leadership, Training and Science, is a US$100 million programme of the AAS supporting Africa-led development of world-class researchers and scientific leaders in Africa. It is implemented with the support of Wellcome and DFID. To date, DELTAS Africa supports 11 consortia’s in 8 African Countries working across more than 50 African institutions. The programme has trained more than 1,500 masters, Phds and Postdoctoral researchers in Africa.

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Promoting the inclusion of more African women in science

In Côte d'Ivoire significant gains have been made in improving education outcomes. However, there are still high illiteracy levels among women. In Malawi, women are under-represented in research with less than 1 in 5 researchers being women. Socio-cultural barriers have contributed to the under-representation of females in science-related careers. Across Africa, despite improvements in gender equality in scientific training, women remain severely underrepresented in scientific leadership in African and global settings. Stories such as these reverberate across the continent hindering 50% of the population, women, to participate in research and development. The African Academy of Sciences’ (AAS) Community and Public Engagement (CPE) programme provides seed funding to researcher to understand and improve on diversity and inclusion in research.

Recently, seven African scientists received funding to promote the inclusion of women in science in Africa. According to UNESCO, only 30% of the world’s researchers are women. In Africa, this has meant the dearth of gendered and diverse perspectives to address Africa’s developmental challenges and the burden of infectious diseases, which often disproportionately affects women.

The seven grantees received US$387,951 from the African Academy of Sciences (AAS) and her partners – DFID and Wellcome - through the Developing Excellence, Leadership and Training in Africa in Science (DELTAS Africa) (CPE) Seed Fund on Gender Equity in Science. This fund aims to:

  1. Implement engagement projects that enhance gender equity in science and contribute to the global gender equality agenda. These projects will suggest solutions for allocating resources and making decisions fairly for both men and women and addressing imbalances that lock African women out of careers in science.
  2. Enable DELTAS Africa programmes to train their researchers and programmes to promote the public’s participation in their research.
  3. Pilot programmes of activity to promote societal impact of DELTAS Africa research moving toward public participation in science. 

To read more on the seven doctoral and postdoctoral fellows who were awarded the CPE seed fund, click here.