Category Archives: Sri Lanka

RFLP Women in Fisheries awards announced

RFLP’s team in the Philippines won the ‘Women in Fisheries’ award for its short film entitled “From gambling to earning” featuring the efforts of the La Conception Women’s Association. The Women in Fisheries Award was contested by the six RFLP countries to recognize and encourage their efforts to mainstream gender in their activities.

Taking runner’s up position was RFLP’s team from Timor Leste.

And on RFLPs work on alternative livelihoods and skills for fishing families and communities, check out the achievements of the RFLP at: RFLP.

All RFLP publications can be found at: http://www.fao.org/fishery/rflp/en

Asian women – finding additional income, improving fish quality

Women sewing, Linay, Philippines. Photo: RFLP

The February Newsletter of the FAO-Spain Regional Fisheries Livelihood Program (RFLP) has stories of women’s  contribuitons to improving fish quality and of finding additional income earning opportunities outside the fisheries supply chain.

RFLP: news on projects involving women

Woman fish seller, Sri Lanka. Source: RFLPThe December 2011 RFLP Newsletter (FAO-Spain Regional Fisheries Livelihoods Programme) features several articles on projects that reach out to women, such as vocational training, skills enhancement in processing, and a case study gender analysis for Negombo and Puttalam Districts in Sri Lanka.

To download the Newletter: Dec 2011 RFLP Newsletter

Sri Lanka gender analysis report:  Gender_Analysis_Puttalam_Negombo

New global beach seine fishing review

This new FAO Technical Paper gives a global overview of beach seine fisheries, studies the operations in several countries in depth and identifies key issues in the responsible use of beach seines and the sustainable livelihoods of beach seine fishers including women and children.

It examines women’s roles in 9 country case studies – Benin, Ghana, Togo, The Gambia, India (Andra Pradesh and Orissa), Kenya, Mozambique, Peru and Sri Lanka. Women’s roles include financing and managing the operations (Ghana), owning shares of the beach seine (Sri Lanka), helping with hauling the net (several countries), sorting the catch (several countries) and processing and marketing the catch (most countries).

http://www.fao.org/docrep/014/i2117e/i2117e.pdf

Tietze, U.; Lee, R.; Siar, S.; Moth-Poulsen, T.; Båge, H.E., eds. Fishing with beach seines. FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Technical Paper. No. 562. Rome, FAO. 2011. 149p.

Sri Lanka: women marginalized at top of supply chain

Supply Chain Management in the Aquaculture Industry: The Case of Food Fish Aquaculture in Sri Lanka

Download at: http://sljol.info/sljol/index.php/SUSLJ/article/viewFile/3741/3021

S.P.M. Jayantha1 and D.A.M. De Silva2

This paper on supply chains for inland fisheries and aquaculture in Sri Lanka found that the fishery value chain was dominated by few big players and a number of intermediaries. The authors found that women became increasingly marginalized “with every step of the value chain with complete exclusion at the

Photo: Woman drying fish, Sri Lanka, Bandara Basanayke

top end”.

Essential new tool for projects: Mainstreaming gender into project cycle management in the fisheries sector

New from the Spain-FAO-RFLP!

Women play a significant role in fisheries, yet lack of attention to gender roles and relations can result in policies or programmes failing to improve livelihoods or reduce vulnerability of fishing communities. The largely ‘invisible’ role of women in small-scale fisheries must be addressed if actions aimed at improving the livelihoods of small-scale fishers and their families are to be successful.

‘As part of its efforts to promote gender equity to improve fisheries livelihoods, the Regional Fisheries Livelihoods Programme for South and Southeast Asia (RFLP) which is funded by Spain and implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN has developed a field handbook that gives guidance on taking gender into account in all phases of small-scale fisheries development projects.

The handbook provides:

  • An overview of the rationale, concepts and approaches concerning mainstreaming gender equality in development cooperation;
  • An overview of the role of women in the fisheries sector, the problems they face and possible empowerment opportunities;
  • Tools for gender analysis in fisheries development projects and guidance on how to integrate gender aspects at various stages in the project cycle.

‘To download the handbook or to browse a magazine-style electronic version please visit gender mainstreaming manual

The RFLP would love to receive your feedback or comments on the new handbook. Please visit the above link to make contact.