Gender and Aquaculture: Equity and Empowerment in the Fisheries and Aquaculture Value Chains
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The document discusses the need for gender-transformative approaches to aquaculture. Recent studies show that while targeting women with technologies can provide benefits, social and gender relations shape adoption and use. Gender-integrated approaches that do not address underlying inequities limit sustainability. True empowerment requires challenging social norms through participatory action research, consciousness-raising, and supporting collective action and networks to foster dynamic, multiscale change.
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Gender and Aquaculture: Equity and Empowerment in the Fisheries and Aquaculture Value Chains
- 1. The Need for Gender- Transformative Approaches Gender and Aquaculture: Equity and Empowerment in the Fisheries and Aquaculture Value Chains 24–25 February 2015 Afrina Choudhury, Gender Specialist, WorldFish, Bangladesh
- 2. • What are women-targeted technologies? • How do study findings substantiate the need for gender-transformative approaches (GTAs)? • What are gender- transformative approaches (GTAs), conceptually and practically? Contents
- 4. Why target women? How? Close to home for easy access (time and labor burden, mobility and access constraints) More control over homestead assets Income opportunity from an underutilized resource (without hindering other usage) Enhanced resilience through diversified food and income options Nutritional consumption enabled through small fish Selection based on interest and close proximity to resources Technical knowledge transfer through short-duration trainings Coaching Demonstration set up for practical learning and scaling out Linkage events Targeting women with technologies
- 5. Recent study confirms need for GTA
- 6. Introduction to research study Rationale: • Research on agriculture and aquaculture technologies focuses on testing and refining them to increase output. • There is a need to understand how the social and gender relations in a local context shape how women and men adopt, use and adapt these technologies. • Such knowledge will help to design more appropriate technologies and dissemination strategies that lead to independent uptake, sustained use and equitable development outcomes. Research question: How do gender relations shape the uptake and use of aquaculture technologies?
- 7. Research sites and methodology Khulna District Barisal District Total Bohalia Jalapara Sarendrapur Lakripur Innovation (cage or pond) Cage Pond Cage Cage and pond Project (CSISA-BD or AIN) CSISA-BD AIN CSISA-BD CSISA-BD Primary religious background Hindu Muslim Muslim Muslim FGDs 6 10 6 10 32 In-depth interviews 25 15 19 30 89 Total 31 25 25 40 121
- 8. Study findings: Technology users are embedded in a range of relationships WorldFish project staff, officers and contact people
- 9. Relationships inside household Projects want to involve or target women, but this requires the whole household to consent to attend training, provide inputs and investment, and provide labor time. Attending training can affect these relationships: • Training affects the type of work women are perceived to be able to do. • Training affects how much work women do. One woman (pond adopter in Khulna in her 30s with secondary education) said: “[Husbands say,] ‘you have learned everything, fish farming along with vegetable farming. We husbands don’t have to do anything; you can do it all.’ Saying this, they leave it to us. Now [because of] training I am in another hassle—now the husbands don’t do things, and we have to.” Household relationships can affect who controls the money and benefits.
- 11. Relationships among group There are both benefits and drawbacks from a group. Strong relationships help to foster technology use and benefit, especially for women. “If I’m away, [my wife] can call our neighbors, like my brother’s wife. That is why this project was kept jointly.” (Male respondent, Barisal) Lack of trust and certain power dynamics can affect the potential for pooling resources and sharing knowledge. “When doing it together, someone does more. The person whose house the food is in gives food on two extra days. The person who doesn’t have the food in his house doesn’t remember and stays busy with other work. But if each one is on his own, each will remember about the work—that the work of looking after the fish has to be done first. Otherwise one sits in expectation of the other.” (Female respondent, Barisal)
- 13. Inequalities within the community can lead to problems within households “If anyone fails on any paper in an exam, then how does the heart feel? [The demonstration farmer] got this fish; how does her heart feel? And we who didn’t get the fish; how do our hearts feel? ... My husband also says, you go swaying to the meeting and come back swaying, but only the Anwar fisher’s wife got the fish …” (Female respondent, Barisal) “My husband prohibited me from going to the [next] meeting. ‘You have been going to the meeting for so many days but they don’t give you anything.’ That is why the husband says it’s bad and forbids me.” (Female respondent, Khulna) Another woman from the same village said, “My husband doesn’t help me with my work anymore … My husband says they don’t give you anything in your meeting.”
- 14. Relationships outside village Potential trade-offs in testing technologies “Those who can afford to release fish worth 1000–2000 taka were given fish, and those who do not have the ability to release fish weren’t given fish. That’s why I say that the poor constantly have to bear kicks … Our space is small, and that is why we didn’t get fish.” (Female respondent, Khulna) Managing expectations Facilitating independent use: •What processes? •What technologies? •What additional skills?
- 17. The need for gender-transformative approaches
- 18. Why gender transformative? • Practice is lagging behind understanding. • “Empowerment lite” does not lead to real and sustained change. • Technical approaches and gap filling (e.g. delivering technologies to women) can accept or reinforce inequity. • Gender integration without social change limits sustainability of impacts. “The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present … so we must think and act anew.” Abraham Lincoln, 1809–1865
- 19. Key features of a gender-transformative approach understands people and social diversity in their context engages with both women and men addresses unequal power relations enables critical learning, reflection and questioning fosters dynamic and multiscale change processes.
- 20. Gender-transformative research Integrates efforts to redress gender disparities in resources, markets and technologies with complementary actions to address underlying social norms and power relations. Institutions and policies Community Individual Research and development organizations Technical interventions Gender-transformative action
- 21. GTA mechanisms: Plans and possibilities • household approaches to foster more equitable intrahousehold decision-making and relationships • participatory action research (PAR)—experiential learning to build new capacities and recognition of those capacities • technology training approaches that integrate social issue awareness (e.g. HKI manual) • strategic gender initiatives to foster change in norms, attitudes and practices for positive development outcomes (e.g. communications for social change campaigns targeting different groups, gender champions) • supporting collective action and networks.
- 22. GTA in Faridpur
- 23. New aquaculture technology dissemination approach • The technology extension package is re-designed to combine technical aquaculture training with gender-consciousness- raising exercises from HKI’s Nurturing Connections manual. • Training is modularized to interact with different stages of the production cycle and address social issues that may arise as a result of applying new knowledge. • Changes in production and knowledge, attitudes and practices (both technical and social) are being monitored among participating women and their spouses through survey research methods and process documentation.
- 25. PAR on challenged ponds
- 26. Why is this research important? •There are 4.27 million small shaded homestead ponds in Bangladesh (Ben and Arif 2012), which have the potential for enhanced fish productivity. •Traditional aquaculture technologies don’t work well in small shaded ponds. •Women’s engagement and preference for homestead shaded ponds provide opportunities for greater equity of benefits. How this research is different? •It engages farmers as co-researchers in knowledge generation and analysis. •The research seeks to understand alternative food systems appropriate for shaded multi-use ponds. •The focus is on a regular off-take of fish for consumption as the primary objective.
- 27. • Key research question: What technologies lead to sustainable intensification and regular harvesting of fish from small homestead ponds, and how can these be developed and delivered in ways that lead to equitable benefits? • Desired outcomes: • increased productivity in small homestead ponds • reduced external feed and fish seed inputs • enhanced and more constant fish harvesting for consumption and income • increased diversity of fish species • increased equitable benefits for women. • Key research interventions: • research on appropriate fish species and density • research on effects of diversity of fish habitats on fish productivity and reproduction • understanding shaded pond food and energy cycle • impacts of participatory action research on gender equity outcomes.
- 28. Gender and aquaculture review
- 29. Study conclusions • Aquaculture training is leading to enhanced status and strengthened voice in intrahousehold bargaining, irrespective of methodology. • Long-lasting and deeply held beliefs around gender roles and responsibilities can be challenged when women are involved in activities that bring clear economic benefits to their households, or that enable them to perform their culturally ascribed roles more effectively. • However, the impacts of involving women can be temporary. Women may not be able to secure long-standing, sustainable change in their roles and responsibilities.
- 30. • Securing long-lasting change can only succeed if women and men themselves take charge of—and feel they benefit as individuals and as families from—changes in gender relations. • Innovative methodologies for technology development and dissemination need to focus on promoting farmer adaptive capacity and enabling them to take charge of their own learning, which is not a gender-neutral process. • Working with development partners, value chain actors, communities, families and individuals to remove gender- based constraints to women's full participation in aquaculture is essential. Study conclusions
- 31. Thank You
Editor's Notes
- Formative study to help guide emerging AQ interventions in WorldFish – which are trying to integrate or involve women in these technologies…what can we learn to do this better? WorldFish is taking a bold step in doing this, and this study highlights the complexity of what field staff are having to encounter In order to do it appropriately, must challenge assumptions that targeting or involving women automatically leads to benefits for women or gender relations Furthermore – how to sustain any changes or benefits for women?
- We try to involve or target women but women do not use the technologies in a vacuum – without influences from other actors and institutions. Power relations – and specifically gender power relations – at every level affect the extent to which women can actually use and benefit from these innovations. This CCAFS & AAS funded study of two women targeted aquaculture technologies, disseminated through two WorldFish projects (USAID funded CSISA-BD and AIN), has found that technology interventions that target women alone may not necessarily enhance women’s contributions to aquaculture outcomes and the benefits they derive from them. This discrepancy between expected and actual outcomes arises because women, and men, exist in a multidimensional system of gender relations which influence women’s ability to: adopt technologies, gain and apply knowledge and skills to adapt them, achieve anticipated production and consumption outcomes and share equitably in their benefits.
- Involve or target women Targeting women to receive assets can be a first step in the process of women actually using and deciding on AQ Women have varying levels of responsibility and decision-making power relative to the husbands, fathers, or other males in the household In one village, men and women say that the husband and wives do everything equally (joint responsibility); men’s and women’s labour can complement each other In another village, men do the work. The technology is in their wife’s names only. Who goes to training Women in Barisal, in her 20’s, primary education – attended pond training: “My husband also doesn’t like all this. He also doesn’t like that I went to the meeting. The woman should stay at home. Fish farming is done by the men… I stopped farming fish. It was difficult for me to go the training. I have a small child, I have household work … Again there are outside men at the training. They see us … I didn’t go any more after those 3-4 days. I didn’t go anymore because I have hassles here.” (from husband, in-laws) Training can affect the relationships - Women learn to do tasks that men previously did – can achieve a new status (with roles and responsibilities) in productive activities (ESP POND) There is a short gender module in the training that may help women to increase their decision-making in the household (though this still needs to be researched) Motahar – him and his daughter-in-law were chosen as the pond demonstration farmer in Khulna – he is over 70 years old: “it’s easy, she [daughter-in-law] can do everything. Even if I am not home for 10 days she can look after everything. She is also sufficient alone in doing the agricultural work. She doesn’t need me on many occasions.” However, training can also increase women’s workload. Loss of leisure or rest time. Only women’s workload is increasing. Some women like the new livelihood opportunity so they do not mind. Others wish their husbands would help them more. One woman (pond adopter in Khulna in her 30’s with secondary education): “[Husbands say,] ‘you have learnt everything, fish farming along with vegetable farming, we (husbands) don’t have to do anything, you all can do’. Saying this, they leave it to us. Now [because of] training I am in another hassle, now the husband’s don’t do, we have to do.” Who controls money or benefits In Khulna cage site, both men and women said that women controlled the money and profits from the cage more than men. One husband (in his 40’s) said: “it’s her money. I don’t have any interest in that money. It is not my concern what she does with that money”. Another husband said he considered it as his wife’s own income and she could spend it any way she wanted. In one very poor household in Barisal, the woman was the primary financial manager. The husband said that he felt it is good for women to have wealth and that his wife managed all the money and kept the earnings. However, for others in Barisal, many of the women and their husbands said it was mainly the men who made decisions about the money. One man said “even if the money stays in their hands, we are the ones who spend it…they don’t spend anything. They bring the money and put it in our hands.”
- Strong relationships In cage village in Khulna, the technology was disseminated to members of an existing women’s group; who was strong and people trusted, both women and men. Shikha Boiragi (cage adopter, Khulna, in 20’s, secondary education): “we decided together that we will all release some fish in a pond and breed them there for some time and then from there we will give fish to everyone” Groups can help to pool financial resources or labor Shah Alam (husband in 40s, in Barisal, cage): “If I’m away, [my wife] can call our neighbours, like my brother’s wife. That is why this project was kept jointly” Poor group dynamics Unequal allocation of work among women cage adopters. In one village, one woman (Barisal, in her 20’s, primary education) said she felt that she did more work than everyone else: “When doing it together, someone does more. The person’s house that the food is in, he gives food on two extra days. The person who doesn’t have the food in his house, he doesn’t remember, he stays busy in other work. And if each one is on his own, they will remember about the work, that, the work of looking after the fish has to be done first. Otherwise one sits in expectation of the other.” Lack of trust makes it difficult to make decisions – especially financial decisions – at the group level. Particularly around how much to re-invest and how much to spend on personal expenses. Sharing knowledge The demonstration farmer model is a way to have a ‘Learning Center’ in the village and encourage intra-community knowledge sharing. A certain percentage of assets are given to a demonstration farming HOUSEHOLD, and the other farmers can learn from them. The success of this though depends on the process and selection criteria of the farmer, and how good they are at sharing the knowledge. And whether the rest of the community will learn from them. Also, this is a technology focused trial, so need to show how the pond can be successful. There are a lot depending on the performance of the pond AND the demo farmer – so this is difficult One woman pond demo farmer (in her 40’s, from Barisal) said she liked to use the new management practices and was able to improve her life from it. However, she had some challenges in sharing knowledge: “They don’t even come close to us. That isn’t the fault of World Fish. They taught them, if there is anyone among you more knowledgeable, you can also let them know, the experience will increase. But they don’t listen to much. They don’t come…. Will they give value to my words? Everyone eats their own rice. I also don’t go to say anything to them. They also don’t come near me.” Must be aware of social sensitivities –research question – why would other women not want to learn from her? Must investigate further. Inequality between demonstration farmer and other farmers (who do not receive inputs) can contribute to this. Women who attended the pond trianing but did not receive inputs said they were sad or upset that they didn’t receive anything and the demo farmer did. Woman who attended pond training in Khulna: “if anyone fails in any paper in an exam then how does the heart feel and this fish that [the demonstration farmer] got, how does her heart feel and us who didn’t get the fish, how do our hearts feel?...my husband also says, you go swaying to the meeting and come back swaying, only Anwar fisherman’s wife got the fish…” THIS HAS IMPLICATIONS “my husband prohibited me from going to the [next] meeting. ‘You have been going to the meeting for so many days but they don’t give you anything’. That is why the husband says it’s bad or forbids me” Another woman from the same village said: “my husband doesn’t help me with my work anymore … my husband says they don’t give you anything in your meeting”
- Trade-offs in testing There may be a trade-off between testing the feasibility of a new AQ technology and decreasing poverty. For example, choosing an appropriate pond to test and demonstrate technologies may mean choosing a household that is not poor Even in the same village in Khulna, pond adopters had different opinions. One man said he thought they provided training to the right people, or the poor people: “From the 25 of us in this group they didn’t select the rich people and give it. All of us are poor. This woman (field staff) is intelligent; she went from home to home and selected the best people. All of them are hard core poor.” But one woman said the poor who really could have benefitted from getting some kind of input from WorldFish: “Those who can afford to release fish worth 1000/2000 taka, they were given fish and those who do not have the ability to release fish, they weren’t given fish. That’s why i say that the poor constantly have bear kicks….our space is small that is why we didn’t get fish” Managing expectations - Even if the project is very clear and transparent about what resources will be provided and for who, some people at the village-level seemed confused and disappointed if they did not receive assets. Facilitating independent use Cages were introduced as an adaptive research trial so project officers had to provide strong technical support and decision-making. Important to think through what kind of skills and experience people will need when it is up to them to manage the technologies on their own – financial training? Negotiation skills training for women? Do some technologies lend better to being used without the support of extension officers? Are cages more complicated than the pond polyculture? In Khulna, women who attended the pond training said they were specifically encouraged NOT to depend on them, they said: don’t stay reliant on us
- POINT 3 (for audience): these technical approaches work within the existing social context and inequities instead of seeking to change those that stop poor women and men from reaching their potential Note to Afrina: POINT 4: is a GTA…moving you to the next slide on what this type of gender integration, that seeks social change, would look like… so a GTA is a way to integrate gender that seeks to act upon the social context and the ways in which it/inequalities within it hinder poor women’s and men’s abilities to define and achieve development goals… limit what they feel they can aspire to be Research for development initiatives whose goal is to typically fill “gender gaps” and focus “…on the separate characteristics of women and men rather than on the way that social institutions work together to create and maintain advantages and disadvantages” are highly problematic and fail to sustainably reduce gaps in poverty between women and men (Okali 2011)
- Design and test approaches that integrate technical interventions and social change efforts…AAS research program… including a focus on our own organization culture and capacities
- No one GTA; nor one initiative should operate alone Gender power relations operate across actors and scales so ‘portfolio’ of initiatives must do the same to foster change in attitudes, norms and behaviors…
- Applying learning from the study to design a new training approach in the CSISA BD project
- Applying learning from the study to design a new training approach in the CSISA BD project
- Multi project co-funding
- Desired Outcomes Faruque should say what was the action?
- Applying learning from the study to design a new training approach in the CSISA BD project