Tag Archives: woman

From family farm to climate tech: How one Kenyan woman is helping farmers outsmart drought

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In Kenya, agriculture employs up to 75 per cent of the population, but farmers’ livelihoods are being threatened by a changing climate and the loss of productive land, which is impacting the whole of Africa.

As droughts and extreme weather events in the East African nation increase in frequency and intensity, Maryanne Gichanga believes innovation is vital in helping Kenya’s agricultural community build resilience. 

Farmers in Kenya are using new data tools to improve their productivity.

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Speaking to the UN ahead of the International Day of Clean Energy Day, marked annually on 26 January, she explains how in a ‘male-dominated field’, she has succeeded in providing farmers with insights into soil and crop health as well as weather patterns by using solar-powered sensors and AI-powered satellite data. 

From farmers to helping farmers

“I grew up in a farming set-up. My parents are farmers. I witnessed a lot of harvests, but when climate change started happening, we could not understand what was happening. Since our source of income was farming, when the harvest was bad, it directly affected our quality of life, and it meant that we could not go to school. 

I always wanted to offer solutions to my parents and other people from farming families. That is what inspired me to start my company and get people who are like-minded to build this solution to support smallholder farmers. 

Greenovations Africa, an initiative supported by the UN which supports women entrepreneurs like myself, was a very important part of the process, because they believed in companies that are small and offered them training and seed capital to help them grow.

Giving up is not an option

In Africa, communities are quite patriarchal. So, trying to get into this male-dominated field is a thing. It is hard. It has its own challenges, because people would rather work with a man. They feel that men understand what you do better than you do. In many places, they do not believe in female leadership; Even women offering solutions is not a thing they would take up.

What really helped me on this journey was persistence and having training and demonstrations to show what we do and that we know what we are doing. You cannot give up. Collaborate with the people you meet and eventually it will work out. 

It is also important to keep your eyes on why you started; knowing that my parents are no longer struggling and thinking about the millions of children whose parents are farmers, and the futures of those children that would be jeopardized if their parents don’t have stable incomes. 

Sometimes you look at how far you have come and think, giving up is not an option. So many people depend on you. That is what keeps me focused. 

The reward

My highest point is when I see lives changed directly.

When you empower farmers, their lives change. 

When you see a direct increase in crop yields or when people are no longer struggling, it makes you want to work even harder. 

When you see that the farmer, who did not even have the money to buy seeds, is in control of the prices they sell their harvest on, that is very encouraging for me. 

The call to others

To other women and girls who want to innovate in agriculture or climate action, I would just say go for it.

You will learn along the way, and there are a lot of people who will support you financially or offer technical support, advice, and training. There is no right time to start, and you will never be prepared enough – you just have do it…don’t be scared!”

Nepal appoints first woman prime minister, as UN expresses solidarity amid crisis

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Rewrite as per earlier instructions: Nepal’s former Chief Justice Sushila Karki was appointed as Nepal’s first woman Prime Minister by President Ram Chandra Poudel who administered the oath of office on Saturday, in a ceremony attended by youth representatives, officials and foreign diplomats.

According to media reports, she has been tasked with organizing fresh elections within six months. She previously served as the only woman chief justice, leading the Supreme Court from 2016 to 2017.

“At this pivotal moment, the United Nations stands alongside the people of Nepal in their aspirations for peace, justice, transparency, accountability and progress,” said Hanna Singer Hamdy, UN Resident Coordinator in Nepal, in a statement. She also recognised the contributions of the President, the Chief of Army Staff and ‘GenZ’ youth leaders, noting that their efforts “helped make this transition possible.”

The UN remains committed to working with the Government to support stability, human rights and sustainable development, the statement added. An inspiration for girls and women Children’s Fund UNICEF congratulated Ms. Karki, saying her appointment “is an inspiration for girls and women,” and highlighted the importance of placing children’s rights at the centre of Nepal’s recovery.

Similarly, the UN Development Programme (UNDP), gender equality agency UN Women, and reproductive health agency, UNFPA, expressed support for her leadership, emphasising inclusive governance, gender equality, and the protection of women and youth. Nepal army soldiers at the Supreme Court after the complex was set on fire by protesters.

Grave challenges

The appointment comes amid grave challenges. The unrest began Monday as a self-styled “Gen Z protest” against corruption, nepotism and social media restrictions. Security forces opened fire on crowds, resulting in multiple deaths and injuries. Protesters stormed and torched key institutions, including the parliament, Supreme Court, federal and provincial government offices, and political party offices, while also targeting media outlets, schools, businesses and homes.

Jailbreaks occurred in several locations, and reports suggest some demonstrations may have been infiltrated by outside actors and groups, further complicating security. In response, the army assumed control of nationwide security late Tuesday, deploying troops across the Kathmandu Valley and imposing movement restrictions to stabilise the situation.

Children’s Fund UNICEF congratulated Ms. Karki, saying her appointment “is an inspiration for girls and women,” and highlighted the importance of placing children’s rights at the centre of Nepal’s recovery.

What does it mean for the husband when his wife keeps her own surname?

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When a woman chooses not to take her husband’s surname after marriage, people perceive her husband as being higher in traits related to femininity and lower in traits related to masculinity. He is also perceived as having less power in the relationship. This is according to a study led by Rachael Robnett of the University of Nevada in the US. The research is published in Springer’s journal Sex Roles and is the first to examine whether people’s perceptions of a man’s personality vary depending on whether his wife adopts his surname or retains her own.

The tradition of women adopting their husbands’ surname after marriage is arguably one of the most widespread gender-role norms in Western cultures. In recent decades, it has gained attention from feminist scholars who want to understand why the surname tradition remains widely endorsed despite marked changes in the role that women play in society and in the labor force.

According to previous studies, women who violate the marital surname tradition are viewed differently from others. They are described in terms of instrumental traits that in a gendered society are typically assigned to men. These include having a higher status, yielding more power, being more self-focused, ambitious and assertive. These traits contrast with the expressive characteristics that are typically assigned to women, such as being more nurturing, kind and having less influence and power.

To date, researchers have not yet examined how a woman’s marital surname choice influences how others perceive her husband. To this end, Robnett and her colleagues carried out three studies in the US and UK. The first two studies showed that husbands whose wives keep their own surnames are often described through terms that are counter to the gender-typical personality traits and power framework used for men. They are described in more expressive than instrumental terms, and are seen to hold less power in a marriage.

“A woman’s marital surname choice therefore has implications for perceptions of her husband’s instrumentality, expressivity, and the distribution of power in the relationship,” says Robnett. “Our findings indicate that people extrapolate from marital surname choices to make more general inferences about a couple’s gender-typed personality traits.”

Results from the third study conducted by Robnett’s team suggest that people are not unanimous in how they think about such cases. People who firmly hold on to traditional gender roles and can be described as hostile sexists react particularly strongly to a man whose wife retains her surname because they see him as being disempowered.

“We know from prior research that people high in hostile sexism respond negatively to women who violate traditional gender roles,” says Robnett. “Our findings show that they also apply stereotypes to nontraditional women’s husbands.”

“This study joins several others in alluding to a link between traditions in heterosexual romantic relationships and power structures favoring men,” says Robnett. “The marital surname tradition is more than just a tradition. It reflects subtle gender-role norms and ideologies that often remain unquestioned despite privileging men.”