Maureen Miruka on Closing the Accountability Gap and Safeguarding Africa’s Agri-Food Backbone
As the world celebrates International Women’s Day (March 8), the spotlight remains on the critical intersection of gender, conflict, and food security. Maureen Miruka (PhD), director of Gender Equity, Youth and Social Inclusion at CIMMYT, brings over two decades of experience in gender responsive approaches across agricultural research and innovation.
A development studies expert, Miruka has held leadership roles focused on equity in smallholder farming systems across the Global South. Her career includes 16 years at the Kenya Agricultural Research and Livestock Organization (KALRO) and 12 years at CARE, an international development and humanitarian non-profit.
During her time at CARE, she worked on gender equity, gender transformative approaches, and food systems. At CIMMYT, where she has worked for close to one year, Miruka oversees the development of policies, research protocols, and innovation frameworks. These initiatives align science with climate-resilient outcomes and inclusive food systems.
Before joining CIMMYT, Miruka worked with agricultural and food systems in Ethiopia. Today, she continues this work from CIMMYT headquarters in El Batán, Mexico, as a gender scientist and research specialist. Her work at the organization encompasses designing and scaling initiatives that advance equity in farming systems to ensure sustainable food systems.
Miruka’s current role also involves embedding gender approaches into agricultural research and advisory systems.
In an interview with Abraham Tekle of The Reporter, Miruka highlighted the importance of women in leadership and the urgent need to address worsening GBV across Africa. The discussion also focused on achieving justice for survivors, implementing land policy reforms to guarantee women’s access to property, and advancing broader women’s rights. EXCERPTS:
The Reporter: With nearly three decades of experience in social institutions and gender equity, you have frequently shared your perspective on women’s leadership. What drives your commitment to advocacy within the fields of science and agriculture?
Maureen Miruka (PhD): If we begin by looking at the role of women in agri-food systems worldwide, we know that nearly 50 percent of women are involved in agricultural production and make a huge difference. When we turn to Ethiopia, the latest statistics show that agriculture employs over 75 percent of the workforce, and that 80 percent of women are involved in agriculture. In economies such as Ethiopia and Kenya, where I just came from, women’s roles in agriculture are not fully captured beyond what is well known, but their invisible labor also truly counts—and that is what makes these numbers reach 75 to 80 percent.
That also means we need women in positions of leadership, because we identify most easily and most deeply with the challenges women face, and that representation should extend all the way into leadership. Why this matters is that diversity drives expertise, thought processes, and decision-making. So, the more diverse leadership is, and the more women’s voices you have that match what they actually contribute to the sector, the more important it becomes.
In Ethiopia, that representation in parliament stands at about 23 percent, but you led the way in 2018 with gender parity in your parliament, which was truly significant. Additionally, the fact that you have a woman president and the work she has done over the years is something I am very much in awe of. I also read a book about the Battle of Adwa and the role of female leadership in Ethiopia’s struggle, so I believe your country is one that should truly recognize what women mean in leadership and create those spaces for them.
In a recent discussion with a Kenyan media outlet, you stated that leadership is not just about efficiency; it is a fundamental human right enshrined in international frameworks. Despite representing nearly half of the population, women’s representation in high-level decision-making remains low. Why is it critical for women to occupy leadership roles, particularly in national development, science, technology, and other related sectors?
First of all, women are farmers, entrepreneurs, and they are scientists who drive science at all levels. In terms of being scientists themselves, there are renowned women leaders in science in Ethiopia, and others who support science under operations. There are also who work behind the scenes to make sure that science and innovation move ahead. So, when you look at the roles women play across the entire spectrum of our food systems, they deserve a seat at the table, and equitably as they bring expertise, diversity of thought, opinion, and expertise.
They need to match the number of women involved in agriculture and food systems, so that we are serving them.
The other thing, our work with our partners at CIMMYT has actually shown that we have a partner, Last Mile, who worked with village agents who are women. Before they put a quota on the number of village agents they had, they were only able to reach about 23 percent of farmers. But they took a step back and said extension service providers who are women tend to reach women better. These women made sure that 80 percent of their village agents are women, and that enabled them to reach 50 percent of women with our help.
I think that brings in the other element of my answer, in terms of how we have such stringent, discriminatory, exclusionary social norms that we need to address. And that is not by focusing on women only, but also by working with men as decision makers and allies to move the needle. But we do need that leverage to close the gender gap we have in leadership.
You also said that education is a gateway to leadership, yet girls in rural areas of Ethiopia and Kenya face significant barriers. What are the most critical factors preventing girls from completing their schooling?
In Kenya, we believe that if you educate a woman, you educate the village. That, for me, is a big experience. My own mother was taken to school in a time when people did not believe in girls going to school. By her going to school, she completely transformed the life of her family and the life of anyone within her village. Being an educator, anyone from her village who wanted to go to any college-level education—because that was within her sphere of influence—she actually created the opportunities to do so by educating us.
What does that mean? I am here as a woman leader, providing leadership for our science and innovation at CIMMYT, and whatever else I have passed through, I am providing, just by being myself, role modeling for other women. I am also ensuring that we set up the structures within CIMMYT for mentorship and hand-holding by opening up opportunities, scholarships, and everything for women to step into this space and take up leadership.
However, in Africa, young women face such significant barriers earlier on in their lives compared to young boys because of social and cultural norms that are reinforced by poverty to limit the rights of women.
While socio-cultural barriers persist globally, Gender-Based Violence (GBV) remains a critical challenge across Africa, often exacerbated by regional instability. In Ethiopia, reports from the conflict in Tigray indicate that over 100,000 women fell victim to GBV, with similar patterns appearing in the ongoing unrest in the Amhara and Oromia regions where such violence has been documented as a tool of warfare. Given this context, what is the current status of legal and restorative justice for these survivors, and what systemic changes are needed?
Throughout the world, we have seen women being used as tools of war and experiencing gender-based violence again and again. For me, GBV has evolved to currently within a household, within online spaces, and social media has enabled it. It keeps evolving, and it requires us to really take a step back and say why this has happened and what we can do within our programming to ensure that the sexual violence, for instance, that women faced during the Tigray War should not happen.
Right now, there is so much crisis going on around the world, and that also makes the work we do with agricultural systems for research and development in building climate resilience to women, because what happens when people are fighting for scarce resources such as water, women have to walk long distances to go and fetch water. So, today, we recognize the triple harm that women face.
In the agricultural sector as well, when we do not implement gender transformative approaches, we do more harm that causes tensions in the household that lead to gender-based violence. So, we must really address it as a core issue in all of our programming and preempt conversations around GBV.
At CIMMYT, for instance, our Jesse Action Plan has five principles, and one of those is to ensure that we do no harm. Another is to make sure that we look at intersecting identities that might lead to all of that and really preempt GBV. But beyond having that as a principle, we have to have the tools and approaches for addressing it within our programs and having the right partners for doing so.
We cannot also work in the agriculture sector and say we do not know about this—we work with partners who already have the system set up for being frontline responders, for referral systems by linking with the police and providing all the medical, psychosocial, and other support.
To also tackle the issue, we should be able to know what the ecosystem that we are dealing with. The other thing is to go back again and use the approaches that I have worked a lot in my previous work that have been developed with organizations and other NGOs, such as CARE. These approaches help us to sit down and go through a conscientization process where women share what they go through and try to change those norms at the community level about GBV. However, all of these come to legislation and ensuring those international treaties at the national level.
So, if women are oppressed, GBV will aggravate and perverse.
Reports indicate that up to 50 percent of GBV survivors are in conflict-affected areas, where sexual violence is weaponized to terrorize communities. Despite thousands of reported cases, the accountability gap remains vast. Could you identify the primary obstaclesthat hinder successful prosecutions? How can you define its consequent impact?
Survivors face profound physical and psychological trauma, compounded by pervasive stigma and social exclusion. These factors, alongside the disruption of livelihoods and food systems, significantly increase the vulnerability of women. Within conflict zones, displacement and the collapse of support systems have led to a total breakdown of health, justice, and protection frameworks. Consequently, development interventions—regardless of whether they focus on climate or food systems—must mainstream the prevention of gender-based violence (GBV) rather than treating it as a concern exclusive to health-focused projects.
Governments must be held accountable for addressing historical injustices to ensure these cycles of violence do not persist. As researchers and scientists, it is essential to align with social movements advocating against these injustices. By providing robust data and evidence, we can demonstrate how GBV undermines community resilience and destabilizes food systems. Adopting this holistic, systems-based perspective allows us to illustrate the interconnectedness of food, health, and social stability, providing the necessary evidence to drive meaningful dialogue and policy change.
You have argued that women are the backbone of food systems. How does the current Ethiopian context reflect the need for a “stronger gender lens” in agriculture?
While women are the backbone of agriculture and are often credited with feeding the world, this should not result in an unfair burden being placed upon them. At CIMMYT and specifically within Ethiopia, women are recognized as agri-food system heroes who drive political discourse, science, innovation, and entrepreneurship, in addition to their roles as farmers. It is essential to adopt a systems perspective to ensure women secure their rightful place within the Ethiopian agricultural landscape.
Past collaborative work in Ethiopia focused on institutionalizing gender-transformative approaches, starting at the community level to address social and gender norms. The goal was to enable the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture and aligned ministries to implement these strategies effectively. This included ensuring gender parity at the ministerial level by refining job descriptions to attract women to the sector. These efforts considered how women are reached, how they benefit, and how they are empowered through systemic transformation.
Applying this knowledge to on-ground market systems development requires a deep consideration of social norms and the implementation of gender-transformative approaches. This is a critical link in the development continuum; even the superior varieties of wheat and maize developed in Ethiopia will not achieve their full potential without addressing market systems. Furthermore, these innovations cannot benefit the population holistically if women’s roles within these systems are overlooked. A comprehensive, holistic outlook is necessary to move the needle forward.
What systemic reforms are still required to ensure that women across Africa—and Ethiopia specifically—can transition from marginal players to primary beneficiaries and impactful leaders in the agricultural sector?
For me, land access is a critical component of agricultural development and the creation of resilient food systems. As to my knowledge, in Ethiopia, it is estimated that only 20 to 30 percent of women hold formal land ownership documents. This is largely because their names are frequently omitted from land certificates, a common occurrence within government-owned land systems, community-based arrangements, or traditional inheritance structures.
The challenge of land access is compounded by marital and inheritance traditions; when women marry and leave their family homes, they often lose their claim to ancestral land. While countries like Kenya and India have passed legislation granting women the right to inherit land from their parents, deeply rooted social norms often prevent these laws from being realized. To address this, we must bridge the gap between formal legislation and community-level social norms, ensuring a shift that allows these legal rights to be fully exercised.
In Ethiopia, what I have seen—and what continues to happen—is the need to ensure not just addressing the lack of women’s inclusion, but also promoting joint thinking between men and women. This is important so that women have control and decision-making power, particularly in relation to land systems to ensure continued investment in land productivity. If you do not have ownership over a piece of land, you are less likely to make significant investments in it. In that regard, land certification reforms in Ethiopia are expected to have a strong impact.
Evidence has already shown that when women’s land rights are strengthened, overall productivity and household welfare improve.
I have served as a board director at an organization known as land campaign for Ladessa in Ethiopia involved in the Stand for Her Land (S4HL) campaign, in which many countries are participating. This is part of a broader social movement that should expand globally to address these issues, using tools developed by the organization and others to support land reform.
These reforms are important, but they must be aligned with social norms and institutional processes. When this alignment is achieved in land systems, food systems become more resilient. Women gain better access to finance—since land is often used as collateral—and improved access to markets, which supports long-term productivity.
What lessons should the country take from international institutions to ensure these policies are actually implemented on the ground?
The S4HL campaign is a tool that Ladessa has developed should be fully utilized. Ladessa, together with partners that have experience engaging with governments, communities, and traditional institutions on land-related issues related with land. We already have data from Ethiopia, which indicates figures in the range of 22 to 30 percent. At the same time, we recognize that earlier land reforms have contributed to the empowerment of women in the sector. The question then becomes how to move to the next level.
In my view, this requires addressing the social norms surrounding land ownership. Policy reforms alone can only achieve limited impact. It is necessary to engage communities directly, working at the local level. For example, in Kenya—where I come from—approaches differ significantly between communities, such as those in the western part of the country and those in central Kenya. Similarly, in Ethiopia, interventions must be highly contextualized, taking into account the country’s ethnic diversity and varying local practices related to women’s land ownership.
As we look beyond the month of March, what is your “call to action” for the Ethiopian government and the international community to ensure a future where women and girls can lead and thrive?
I have said it many times: women are at the center of agricultural development. Gender equity and social inclusion are central to this—they are not side issues. They are not things to be addressed only when convenient. My call to the Government of Ethiopia is to recognize women as key actors: as farmers, entrepreneurs, scientists, extension service providers, policymakers, and as part of the broader system that supports research and development.
We also know that agriculture employs about 75 percent of Ethiopia’s workforce. When investment is directed toward women’s labor, access to climate-resilient technologies—as we are discussing CIMMYT—and women’s leadership in agricultural systems, it contributes directly to the country’s socioeconomic growth, particularly in the case of Ethiopia’s economy. Doing this is also a matter of justice or a social justice issue that must be addressed.
So, we have to shift the focus from simply raising awareness to taking action. We already have the data—we know where women are and what they are doing. What is needed now is to ensure that women have access to land, finance, innovation, and leadership opportunities. In particular, access to finance can unlock many of the resources’ women need to fully participate and contribute. The emphasis should now be on action: allocating budgets and directing donor funding toward these priorities. As we have the data, we understand the solutions, and we know what works. The next step is to move forward and implement what needs to be done.
