Gender Issues in the Small Scale Fisheries in the Pacific region

1
Gender Issues in the Small Scale Fisheries in the
Pacific region

• Challenge Finding entry points for strategic
  engagement of women and men

2
Why gender consideration?

• Usually inclusion of women is through a
  community approach-cultural, social barriers
  usually not considered ie. Ownership access
• Governance structures -vary
• Different areas of gender expertise and
  traditional knowledge skills.
• Small-scale fisheries includes the informal
  sector with major participation of women.

3
The need for a more holistic definition of small
scale fisheries that

• involves support activities around fishing- women
• includes pre-harvest, post-harvest-processing,
  packaging and all forms of value added activities
• Includes all forms of selling marketing-
  cultural and social barriers
• Distribution systems and distribution points-
  challenges of transportation/preservation
• Community-based fisheries management plans
• Indirect impacts/factors affecting fisheries
• Institutional set ups at the community level

4
15 years after Beijing, 20 years after Rio, CEDAW
ratification -what has changed?

• 4 main questions that need to be asked
• What progress has taken place
• What shifts has occurred
• What measurement/indicators have been developed
  to measure progress in gender equity/men women
  participation?
• Human rights and equitable rights to access,
• Knowledge, opportunities.
• Emerging areas- Climate change, DRM

5
What shifts has occurred

• Women engaged in traditional men fishing areas-
  diving for bech-de-mer, deep sea fishing.
• Women have access to and own boats and other
  improves technology, have access to markets,
  internet, modern amenities- thus a total change
  in lifestyle.
• Impact on womens health
• Credit and financing mechanisms?
• Export market possibility

6
Poverty alleviation and food security

• Daily hunters and foragers of fish food.
• Generations of use of resources- knowledge,
  skills perfected over time- need for
  acknowledgement , documentation and use of this
  knowledge when considering adaptive strategies,
  alternative livelihoods, introducing new
  technology/etc
• Depletion of resources, lack of alternative
  sources of livelihood, migration, population
  displacement coastal development and tourism,
  environmental degradation, conflicts, climate
  change- impact on men and women differently.

7
Poverty alleviation and food security

• Entry points for inclusion of women in decision
  making-
• Legislation and policies to include women-
• New developments to have gender assessments to
  clarify gender impacts ( costs/benefits).
• Need for integrated approaches-
• To have gender impacts at all stages of
  projects/initiatives-consideration for social
  mechanisms

8
Ways forward for better gender integration

• Identification of direct and indirect
  benefits/impacts- eg involvement in CCA DRM
  processes
• Proper assessments/analysis of women engagement
  in projects developed
• Need for data on women/men participation
• -income generation, etc
• How do we best integrate women/men issues, areas
  of work, interests
• -

9
Ways forward for better gender integration

• Data on contribution to household income and food
  security to be collected /analysed
• Value added activities/ productive uses of
  fisheries products
• Processing/marketing strategies- and training
  needs
• Social indicators to measure poverty reduction
  and social contribution of SSF to be developed.

10
Possible strategies- the way forward

• Strategic financing mechanisms to be introduced
  in rural communities.
• More strategic marketing/export strategies to be
  developed ( FACT).
• Finance/budgeting training/capital handling, cash
  flow/etc
• Specific training on food handling and labelling,
  food standards- export markets

11
The need for a more strategic approach to gender
inclusion

• Involvement at Planning and development stage of
  projects crucial.
• Women targeted projects to be considered
• in planning.
• Knowledge management
• Communication transportation
• Inclusion of women as trainers and participants
  in SSF.

12
Sufficiently addressed in the Draft

• Gender issues included in all areas.
• Areas of intervention identified.
• Areas of interest, involvement already addressed.
• Progressive document that can raise the bar on
  SSF women/men.
• Positive discrimination of women- sustain
  households and communities included.
• How to implement and sustain- need for
  progressive approaches.