Creating the Space to Empower Women Fishers: Lessons from the Philippines

"Within community-based coastal resource management (CBCRM) projects...fisherfolk organisations have put in place mechanisms for greater visibility and participation of women in leadership structures. But so far, these initiatives have failed to recognise that women's capacity to assume leadership positions is affected by limits on their mobility, the multiple burden of productive and reproductive work, and gender stereotyping. Women have little time or opportunity to take on management tasks, receive training and information, or establish contacts..."

Oxfam Great Britain (GB)'s Leadership Development Programme for Women (LDPW) was carried out in the Philippines between March 2005 and December 2007 to respond to these needs. This 13-page paper, from the Oxfam GB publication "Learning for Action on Women's Leadership and Participation", describes the strategies underpinning this initiative to identify women leaders in the fishing industry and support them to advocate their specific interests in the overall practice of CBCRM. Working with 4 local partners, the project was an effort to:

• enable women fishers to become effective and influential leaders within the partner organisations;
• improve gender mainstreaming within these organisations, through assessing the extent to which current organisational structures and processes are responsive to gender issues and concerns;
• design and support action plans addressing women's needs and interests;
• encourage men and women within the fishing industry to take responsibility for supporting policies to increase the number of women in positions of leadership; and
• contribute to greater learning on gender mainstreaming in CBCRM programmes, advocacy, and campaigns.
  

As detailed here, the LDPW Project consisted of 4 stages:

1. Gender audit: The project analysed the extent to which each partner organisation had succeeded in addressing gender issues in their policies and programmes. This included an assessment of training needs and gaps regarding gender mainstreaming, using participatory rapid appraisal methods to produce information on gender awareness and organisational structure.
2. Planning process: During 4-day gender planning workshops, partner organisations were encouraged to identify gender issues of particular relevance to their area of work, and having done this, to formulate gendered action plans. Workshops also included leadership training. The action plans included developing a better knowledge about laws relating to women's rights and to the fishing industry.
3. Implementation by each of the 4 partners: Details about each of the 4 projects are provided here. For example, SAMMACA is a fisherfolk organisation established in 1992 to promote the community's right to manage their coastal resources. The results of the gender audit showed that the concerns of women working in the industry were not being adequately addressed, and leadership remained very male-orientated. The plan that was developed from this analysis focused on transforming women's and men's attitudes to gender inequality. As part of this, Oxfam GB worked with SAMMACA to make its standard training on leadership more gender-responsive. One result of the LDPW was the development of a young generation of gender facilitators and advocates. "Two young women still serve in the organisation; one was recently elected as general secretary. The recommendations of the gender audit were also considered during the organisation's recent strategic-planning process. As a result, the identification of resources to be managed by women, the development of a gender-responsive education curriculum, and advocacy for the establishment of community-based responses to VAWC have all been included in the strategic plan, paving the way for more women to participate in resource management and to realise their potential as leaders."
4. Assessment process: One tool used to assess the project has been a theatre presentation depicting the reflections and experiences of women participants. This provided a conducive learning atmosphere where women were able to express their views on leadership development and their empowerment in a creative way. The songs and poems developed by the women are now being used in trainings as an aid to the learning process.

In the course of this work, participants identified the steps necessary to establish a favourable environment for encouraging and supporting more women to become leaders in the fishing sector; these steps are outlined in the next section of the report. For instance, developing gender-responsive leadership training requires acknowledgement of the realities about how women and men are perceived as leaders. Discussion of these differences led participants to the crafting of training designed to transform the strategies of leadership development itself, based on a series of principles (listed on page 8 of the document), such as: Leadership that is empowering embodies the value of participatory governance; however, participation can only be meaningful and effective if it is inclusive of everyone, most importantly the marginalised and oppressed.

As a result of the gender audit, the organisations involved in this project were able to identify the following as necessary for creating an environment for women's leadership to grow:

• reviewing organisational policies to measure how they explicitly or implicitly marginalise women’s concerns;
• integrating a gender perspective into the planning cycle by incorporating specific goals, objectives, indicators, and activities;
• raising men's awareness and support to achieve gender equality;
• sharing the responsibility of gender mainstreaming within the entire leadership structure, and not just with women’s committees or gender focal persons;
• providing opportunities for alternative forms of articulation and expression, including the use of visual and performance arts, in programme activities;
• recognising differences between women (for instance, understanding that older and younger women have different skills and experience to bring to leadership and decision-making); and
• linking with other women's organisations in the Philippines.

Oxfam stresses that practical matters such as the physical environment, locality, and timing of training should be considered, with an eye to making them conducive to learning. Several strategies are outlined here, including ensuring that the training schedule is not in conflict with children's school activities or other community activities where women participate. LDPW also recognised that it is important to develop women not only as leaders but also as advocates for women's empowerment and gender equality by encouraging participants to be more gender-aware and to conduct their own gender analysis.

An excerpt from the report follows:

"The outcomes of the LDPW can be summed up as gaining recognition of two things: the validity and urgency of recognising women's contributions to the fishing sector and its development, and the need to identify and support women leaders within the industry who are able to articulate women's interests, and ensure that they are on the agenda of organisations working in this sector.

On an individual level, these interventions helped women to build their self-confidence, appreciate their own abilities, and realise that they had the potential to assume leadership positions. From the outset, LDPW recognised that strategies promoting gender equality are central to addressing the pressing challenges women face in attaining positions of economic leadership.

Some of the strategies successfully implemented in this project include:

• ensuring women's participation in the entire programme cycle: problem analysis; planning; implementation; evaluation;
• making available resources, particularly human and financial resources, to address gender issues and to encourage more women and men to become advocates for gender equality;
• setting up mechanisms at the organisational and programme level for men and women to discuss, negotiate, and agree on priority gender issues and interventions;
• working with men to increase their awareness of the relevance of gender issues, and to encourage their support for women leaders and gender-mainstreaming initiatives;
• providing spaces for women-only initiatives to enable them to act autonomously in project management, decision-making, and fund management.

Overall, these projects demonstrate that leadership training which addresses gender issues can play a vital role in correcting the imbalances that exist in prevailing economic power structures in society, in this case by highlighting the crucial role that women play in the Philippines fishing industry and in coastal management, and empowering them to participate fully in decision-making. In order to counter these imbalances, and in addition to changing institutional structures and policies, both women and men need to be empowered with the appropriate skills, knowledge, resources, and motivation. If we are to achieve real social transformation, we need to recognise that, given equal opportunities, we all have the power within us to become leaders ourselves."