On Gender Mainstreaming Strategies and Tools in Fisheries Development Projects: RFLP Gender Strategy and Lessons from the Asia-Pacific Region

Traditionally, most fisheries development projects have focused on technical aspects, lacking consideration of gender issues during the identification, implementation and monitoring stages. This paper highlights the importance of undertaking gender mainstreaming as part of fisheries interventions and summarizes, as an example, the gender strategy of the Spanish-funded FAO Regional Fisheries Livelihoods Programme for South and Southeast Asia (RFLP). As part of this strategy, RFLP developed a handbook for gender mainstreaming in fisheries project cycle management and organized a workshop to discuss and validate the tools contained in the handbook as well as to come up with best practices for gender mainstreaming in fisheries project management and policymaking. Participants agreed on factors that should be in place for effective gender mainstreaming in the fisheries sector, like the improvement of social networks, promotion of women’s leadership and business skills, improved access and control over resources and social capital, among others. The need for in-depth research during project design and flexibility during implementation were also highlighted as important for successful interventions. At the macro-level, of note is that amongst the participating RFLP countries, only Cambodia has a specific gender policy for the fisheries sector.