National training workshop for fisheries officers/@FAOGhana/David Youngs

Centralizing the role women play in small-scale artisanal fisheries and aquaculture is essential to women’s empowerment and sustainable development

Small-scale fisheries (SSF) play a significant role in supporting livelihoods and poverty alleviation and are considered an indispensable food and nutrition security safety net.  

SSF value chains involve value-adding processes that link production to consumption. As such, they encompass several activities, thus providing job opportunities to various actors along the value chain (VC). In Ghana, small-scale fisheries harvests over half of the fisheries catch in both marine and inland waters, with 90 to 95 percent consumed in the country and over half of the value chain actors are women.

Women’s empowerment and engagement in profitable activities in the value chain stimulates economic growth and sustainable development impacts. Acknowledging the role women play in small-scale artisanal fisheries and aquaculture, and the deep-rooted challenges faced by women, is essential to constructing gender-based approaches to management, allowing and incentivizing women to engage in responsibilities all along the value chains. During design phase of programmes and projects, if gender-sensitive value chain analysis and gender responsive planning are applied, value chains could contribute significantly to economic empowerment of the actors.

To enhance the economic empowerment, The FAO and the Fisheries Commission have organized a national training workshop for fisheries officers on gender transformative approach, SSF guidelines and best practices knowledge products on small-scale fisheries, under the FAO SSF Umbrella Programme project entitled: “Implementing the Small-Scale Fisheries Guidelines for gender equitable and climate resilient food systems and livelihoods in Ghana.

“The fisheries sector serves as a critical part of the Ghanaian economy, supporting nutritional needs, food security and sustenance, and contributing to economic growth and development “said Fred Kwasi Antwi-Boadu executive director of the Fisheries Commission in his welcome address.

The gender transformation training is aimed at equipping fisheries officers to become change agents and trainers to influence gender transformation in the fishing communities at individual level, household level and organizational and institutional level and to ensure that they have a better understanding and awareness on gender issues.

“FAO acknowledges the existence of gender inequality among the actors of the SSF value chain and therefore is promoting gender transformative approach and methodologies to address the underlying causes of inequality that exist among men, women and youth in the fisheries and aquaculture sector” said Ndiaga Gueye Officer in Charge of the FAO office in Ghana. According to Mr Gueye these together with the application of best practices along the fisheries value chain would enable Ghana achieve equitable and sustainable development of its fisheries resources.

The Gender-Transformative Approach

 The gender transformative process is interactive meaning community and value chain stakeholders should contribute to arriving at a behavior change. To ensure that women, men and youth benefit from their activities in the fisheries sector, the gender transformative approach is recommended as it goes beyond gender integration in programmes and project to tackle the underlying causes of gendered inequalities (norms, attitudes, behaviours) and generate effective changes.

The SSF Guidelines

The Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication (SSF Guidelines) is the first ever international instrument dedicated to small-scale fisheries. They are a global consensus on principles and guidance for small-scale fisheries governance and development, directed at all those involved in the sector and intend to guide and encourage governments, fishing communities and other stakeholders to work together and ensure secure and sustainable small-scale fisheries for the benefit of small-scale fishers, fish workers and their communities as well as for society at large. It was developed for small-scale fisheries in close collaboration with representatives of small-scale fisheries organizations in a participatory process; facilitated and endorsed by FAO in June 2014.

After the training, it is expected that the fisheries officers will be able to identify gender related issues and apply gender transformative approaches to solve issues in their area of work. Also serve aschampions to disseminate and adopt the principles and recommendations of the SSF Guidelines and the Best Practices communication and knowledge products for behavioral changes   leading to the sustainable development of the Fisheries Sector in Ghana.