Perspectives on Gender in Science, Technology, and Innovation: A Review of Sub-Saharan Africa's Science Granting Councils and Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals

Abstract

Africa's focus on science, technology, and innovation (STI) has grown over the last decade, with emerging examples of good practice. There are however numerous challenges to sustainable development in Africa; for example, inequalities within and among African countries are rising and enormous disparities of opportunity, wealth, and power persist. While policy makers and organizations have put increasing emphasis on integrating gender into STI policies and initiatives as a means to achieve gender equality for all women and girls, inequality remains a key challenge to continental sustainable development. STI funders such as the Science Granting Councils (SGCs) in Africa are key players in national innovation systems. They advise and facilitate policy and program development, disburse funds, build research capacity, set and monitor research agendas, manage bilateral and multilateral STI agreements, and assess the communication, uptake, and impact of research. They, therefore, have a major role to play in enabling countries to achieve SDG5. This study assessed the current actions in gender mainstreaming across the SGCs and the status of gender research and collaboration in participating countries. Our findings provide evidence of uneven progress in promoting gender equality in the operations of the SGCs, including funding research and promoting the integration of gender dimensions in research content and curricula. All SGCs emphasized national commitments to gender, and the importance of gender in STI, but acknowledged that at the structural and institutional levels there was a misalignment between policy and practice. As expected, more men than women were employed across most levels at the SGCs and held positions of seniority and decision making. Most of the SGCs had very limited or no gender-related funding programs to promote gender and STI or to eliminate the barriers that women scholars face. This resulted in persistent inequalities in who received funding, the size of the grants they received, and in the knowledge production, collaboration, and the impact on their country's gender-related research. These findings suggest that SGCs need to strengthen their actions to mainstream gender if they are to achieve success with SDG5.

Keywords: Africa; Science Granting Council Initiative (SGCI); gender; science technology and innovation; sustainable development goals.

Figure 1

Political economy drivers of change, gender mainstreaming, and collaboration conceptual approaches for understanding how the sub-Saharan Science Granting Council Initiative (SGCI) could improve STI, gender equality, and SDG5 implementation in Africa. Adapted from Department for International Development Department for International Development (DFID) (2019), the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) (2016), and Lee and Schottenfeld (2014).

Figure 2

Gender Equality Index of the 15 African countries that are part of the Science Granting Council Initiative (SGCI). The index includes three constitutive dimensions shown by the bar charts: equality in economic opportunities, equality in human development, and equality in laws and institutions. The overall score for gender equality is represented by the solid line. Adapted from African Development Bank (2015).

Figure 3

The proportion of women employed or affiliated in selected categories at Science Granting Councils (SGCs) during the period 2017 and 2018. Adapted from Southern African Research and Innovation Management (SARIMA) (2017, 2018).

Figure 4

The proportion of research awards from Science Granting Councils (SGCs) that are disbursed to men and women researchers (%) in 2017 and 2018. Adapted from Southern African Research and Innovation Management (SARIMA) (2017, 2018).

Figure 5

Factors that applicants for research awards are required to consider in their applications to Science Granting Councils (SGCs). Adapted from Southern African Research and Innovation Management (SARIMA) (2017).

Figure 6

Selected Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that were a focus at Science Granting Councils (SGCs) in 2017. Adapted from Southern African Research and Innovation Management (SARIMA) (2017).

Figure 7

Perspectives of the focal points of the Science Granting Council Initiative (SGCI) on gender and the operations of the Science Granting Councils (SGCs) during the focus group discussions held at the 2017 SARIMA conference.

Figure 8

Growth in the overall number of gender-related publications and citations for SGCI participating countries, 2008–2017. Source: Scopus.

Figure 9

Percentage distribution of different types of collaboration for countries participating in the Science Granting Council Initiative (SGCI) based on co-authored publications related to gender by year for the period 2008–2017. Single authorship was included in this graph for illustration purposes. Source: Scopus.

Figure 10

Percentage distribution of different types of collaboration for countries participating in the Science Granting Council Initiative (SGCI) based on co-authored publications related to gender by country for the period 2008–2017. Single authorship was included in this graph for illustration purposes. Source: Scopus.

Figure 11

Network visualization of the regional partnership in gender-related research between the 15 countries participating in the Science Granting Council Initiative (SGCI). Each circle, or node, in this network, represents an SGCI-member country, and lines between circles represent co-authorship. The size of the circle corresponds to the number of articles published by that country within our dataset. The thickness of the line represents the frequency of the co-authoring.