Enhancing the employment of women fish retailers in Egypt

Paula Kantor

Livestock and Fish Gender Working Group Workshop and Planning Meeting

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 14-18 October 2013

The IEIDEAS Project

• Project approved December 2011 (SDC funded; 3 years)

• Main activities:

– Dissemination of ‘Abbassa strain’ genetically improved tilapia

– Development of Best Management Practice guidelines followed by BMP training

– Support for women retailers (managed by CARE)– Expansion of aquaculture in Upper Egypt (CARE)– Improving the policy environment for aquaculture

Project impact pathway

INCREASED EMPLOYMENT

INCREASED INCOMES

IMPROVED NUTRITION

IEIDEAS Project

Pilot testing & research

Implementing at scale

Increased aquaculture sustainability (productivity,

production, quality, flexibility in harvest strategies)

IEIDEAS Project partners

Dissemination of improved tilapia strain

Best management

practice training

Research on pro-poor

aquaculture Piloting Women retailer

approaches

Develop technologies

for use in Upper Egypt

Strengthen institutions &

improve policy

Widespread adoption of ‘desert’ aquaculture

Spread of women retailer approaches

Uptake of pro-poor aquaculture technologies

Project governorates

• 5 governorates

• Concentration of aquaculture in the Delta

• Expansion into Upper Egypt

Support for women retailers

Increased fish sales

Higher profits?

Increased incomes

Entitlement to control assets, own income; decision making

Increased consumption

Capacity development of CDAs

CDA situational analysis

Improved CDA management and effectiveness as RC platform

Improved nutrition

Form retailer committees (RCs); provide support & training

RCs represent retailers interests (advocacy, training, inputs, capital…)

Reduced losses

Improved working conditions

Retained employment

Situational analysis of women & men retailers

Improved fish quality

Improved government relations

Value addition

Individual women more engaged in the market

Knowledge gaps

Activities to date

• Retailer survey in 5 project governorates (July 2012)– Women retailers only

(gender analysis?)– Occupation of last resort– Challenges of regular supply;

handling & storage; space to vend; transport; lack of market power/info

– Little economic data collected

• Women retailer committees formed

• Proposal-writing training in Mineya, Fayoum & Kafr El-Sheikh

Activities to date

• Shakshouk (Fayoum) CDA proposal: – 120 iceboxes distributed – tricycle investment – marketplace in Shakshouk – training, capacity building for

RC members & retailers

• New retailer survey, women & men, non beneficiary women– Value added – Decent work– Control over income and HH

level outcomes

Challenges

• Political context and ability to form organizations, advocate for change, work on gender equality

• Doing and paying directly versus developing sustainable organizations, value chains

• Focus and scale of the intervention and mindset about scale

• Implementation versus research/RinD

• Gender accommodating versus transformative– Extent of gender integration capacity

Pro-poor aquaculture production

Increased fish production poor HHs

Increased incomes

Increased consumption

Implement pilot schemes

Identify potential sites and HHs for pilot scale interventions

Monitoring of pilot and adoption assessment

Identify constraints, potential interventions and technologies eg homestead catfish tanks

Large-scale uptake of homestead aquaculture by poor families

Design scalable intervention, integrating GTAs

Partners promote expansion of aquaculture among poor families using HH approach

Improved nutrition

Develop technology-specific BMPs

Identify and test technologies and develop guidelines for pilot tests

Women’s entitlement to control income, assets increases

Increased control of income by women

Activities and potential research

• Developing tank AQ system that will work for catfish– Struggling with the system; assessing potential of

tank culture of tilapia

• Once system is identified and pilot testing in process:– Research on gender, risk and uptake of new tank AQ

technology

Future opportunities: Egypt & Bangladesh

• DANIDA funds for value addition/ market expansion (EG)– Developing processing industry– How to ensure poor & women can benefit from

these new opportunities?

• Research on conditions under which fish retail can be transformative for women (EG)

• Research on transformative employment in the AQ sector (EG and BG)

• Test GTA VCA tools in Bangladesh