By Joyce Maru

Catherine Mungai, an International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)–Climate Impact Research Capacity and Leadership Enhancement (CIRCLE) fellow, has won the best paper award at a Symposium on Climate Change Adaptation in Africa in Ethiopia.

Her paper ‘Adoption of climate-smart agriculture through a gendered intersectionality lens: Experiences from western Kenya’, was among submissions from young researchers in Africa after a Nov 2015 call for papers by the symposium organizers.

Held 21-23 February 2016 in Addis Ababa, the symposium was an interdisciplinary event, mobilizing African and non-African scholars who are currently undertaking research and/or executing climate change projects in the continent.

The discussions focused on ‘fostering African resilience and capacity to adapt’ to climate change and the event showcased experiences from research, field projects and best practices in climate change adaptation in African countries.

‘I was pleasantly surprised to win this award and I would like to sincerely thank ILRI, especially the Capacity Development (CapDev) and CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) teams for facilitating my participation in the CIRCLE fellowship,’ said Mungai. ‘I look forward to contributing to institutionalizing the CIRCLE fellowship program at ILRI’.

The event was organized by the Manchester Metropolitan University (UK), Addis Ababa University, the Research and Transfer Centre ‘Applications of Life Sciences’ of the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (Germany) and the International Climate Change Information Programme.

The CIRCLE in Sub-Saharan Africa program is an initiative of the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) to develop the skills and research output of early career African researchers in the field of climate change and its local impacts on development. At ILRI, the program is coordinated by the CapDev unit and supported by the Livestock Systems and Environment (LSE) program and CCAFS.