1. Gender transformative approaches
in nutrition and aquatic agricultural
interventions
Workshop on “Inspiring Change:
Institutionalizing Gender in Nutrition and
Agriculture Interventions” 9 March 2014
Afrina Choudhury
Paula Kantor and Miranda Morgan, WorldFish

2. Contents:
Examples of two
women-targeted
technologies
Study findings that
substantiate the need
for Gender
Transformative
Approaches (GTA)
What are Gender
Transformative
Approaches (GTAs),
conceptually and
practically?

3. Women
targeted
technologies:
two
examples

4. CAGES
Why women targeted? NUTRITION
CLOSE TO HOME FOR EASY ACCESS
(time and labor burden, mobility and access
constraints )
INCOME OPPORTUNITY AS
UNDERUTILISED RESOURCE PUT INTO
PRODUCTIVE USE
NO NEED FOR OWNERSHIP OF
COMMON WATER BODIES
CAGE FISH INCREASE CONSUMPTION
OPTIONS
WOMEN ARE OFTEN IN CHARGE OF HH
CONSUMPTION DECISIONS
WORLDFISH ADAPTIVE RESEARCH
<FISH COMPONENTS>

5. POND
POLYCULTUR
E
Why women targeted? NUTRITION
CLOSE TO HOME FOR EASY ACCESS
(time and labor burden, mobility and access
constraints)
MORE CONTROL OVER HOMESTEAD
ASSETS
INCOME OPPORTUNITY FROM AN
UNDERUTILISED RESOURCE (without
hindering other usage)
SMALL FISH CAN BE GROWN WITH
LARGE FISH WITHOUT MUCH EXTRA
COST
SMALL FISH CAN BE MULTIHARVESTED
CONSUMPTION CONCERNS OVER
RETURNS FOR INVESTMENT
COMBATED
SMALL FISH HIGH IN MICRO-NUTRIENTS
NUTRITIOUS VEGETABLES CAN BE
GROWN ON DYKES
WORLDFISH ADAPTIVE RESEARCH
<FISH COMPONENTS>

6. Is targeting women with technologies enough?
Even when we do:
• Recognize and respond to the specific needs and realities
of men and women based on their existing roles and
responsibilities
• Build capacity and skills of women
• Link them to markets
• Try to build them up as Demonstration farmers and leaders
• Provide credit access, etc
Does targeting or involving women automatically lead to
benefits for women or more equitable gender
relations?
Furthermore – how do we sustain any positive changes
and benefits for women and their families?

7. Recently
conducted
study
examines
these
notions

8. Introduction to research study
Rationale:
Research on agriculture and aquaculture technologies
focuses on testing and refining them to increase output.
Need to understand how the social and gender relations in
a local context shape how women and men adopt, use and
adapt these technologies.
Such knowledge will help to design more appropriate
technologies and dissemination strategies that lead to
independent uptake, sustained use and equitable
development outcomes
Research question:
How do gender relations shape the uptake and use of
aquaculture technologies?

9. Study findings: Technology users are
embedded in a range of relationships

10. Relationships inside household
• Want to involve or target women but this requires the whole household to consent to attend
training, provide inputs and investment, provide labor time
• Attending training can affect these relationships
E.g. Going to the training and taking on new roles can create tension within HH
“My husband also doesn’t like all this. He also doesn’t like that I went to the meeting. The
woman should stay at home. Fish farming is done by the men…”
– Training affects the type of work women are perceived to be able to do
– Training affects how much work women do
E.g. Training can increase workload
One woman (pond adopter in Khulna in her 30’s with secondary education):
“[Husbands say,] ‘you have learnt everything, fish farming along with vegetable
farming. We (husbands) don’t have to do anything, you all can do’. Saying this,
they leave it to us. Now [because of] training I am in another hassle, now the
husband’s don’t do, we have to do.”
• Household relationships can affect who controls the money and benefits
“Even if the money stays in their hands, we are the ones who spend it…they don’t spend
anything. They bring the money and put it in our hands.” (male respondent, Barisal)

11. Relationships among group
• Both benefits and drawbacks from a group
– Strong relationships help to foster technology use and benefit, especially
for women
E.g. Groups can help to pool financial resources or labor
“If I’m away, [my wife] can call our neighbours, like my brother’s wife. That is
why this project was kept jointly” (male respondent, Barisal)
– Lack of trust and certain power dynamics can affect the potential for
pooling resources and sharing knowledge
E.g. Unequal allocation of work among women cage adopters, leads to problem
of free riding and feeling of unfairness. In a village in Barisal, one woman in
her 20’s said she felt that she did more work than everyone else:
“When doing it together, someone does more. The person’s house that the
food is in, he gives food on two extra days. The person who doesn’t have
the food in his house, he doesn’t remember, he stays busy in other work.
And if each one is on his own, they will remember about the work, that, the
work of looking after the fish has to be done first. Otherwise one sits in
expectation of the other.” (Female respondent, Barisal)

12. Inequalities within the community can lead
to problems within households
E.g. Inequality between demonstration farmer (who gets inputs) and other
farmers (who do not receive inputs) can contribute to this and lead to
disheartenment
“If anyone fails in any paper in an exam then how does the heart feel and this fish
that [the demonstration farmer] got, how does her heart feel and us who didn’t
get the fish, how do our hearts feel?...my husband also says, you go swaying
to the meeting and come back swaying, only Anwar fisherman’s wife got the
fish…”
This has implications
“My husband prohibited me from going to the [next] meeting. ‘You have been
going to the meeting for so many days but they don’t give you
anything’. That is why the husband says it’s bad or forbids me” (female
respondent, Khulna)
Another woman from the same village said: “my husband doesn’t help me with
my work anymore … my husband says they don’t give you anything in
your meeting”

13. • Potential trade-offs in testing technologies: between testing the
feasibility of a new AQ technology and decreasing poverty.
E.g. choosing an appropriate pond to test and demonstrate
technologies may mean choosing a household that is not poor
“Those who can afford to release fish worth 1000/2000 taka, they
were given fish and those who do not have the ability to release
fish, they weren’t given fish. That’s why i say that the poor
constantly have bear kicks….our space is small that is why we
didn’t get fish”
• Managing expectations
• Facilitating independent use: What processes? What
technologies? What additional skills?
Relationships outside village

14. The need for
Gender
Transformativ
e Approaches

15. Why gender transformative?
• Practice lagging behind
understanding
• ‘empowerment lite’ does not
lead to real and sustained
change
• Technical approaches/gap filling
(e.g. delivering technologies to
women) – can accept/reinforce
inequity
• Gender integration without social
change limits sustainability of
impacts
“The dogmas of the quiet past are
inadequate to the stormy present.
……so we must think and act anew”
Abraham Lincoln 1809-1865

16. Key features of Gender Transformative
Approach
• Understands people and
social diversity in their
context
• Engages with both women
and men
• Addresses unequal power
relations
• Enables critical learning,
reflection & questioning
• Fosters dynamic & multi-
scale change processes

17. Gender transformative research
Integrates efforts to redress gender disparities in resources,
markets and technologies with complementary actions to address
underlying social norms and power relations

18. GTA mechanisms: plans and possibilities
• Household Approaches to foster more equitable intra-
household decision making & relationships
• Participatory Action Research, experiential learning to
build new capacities and recognition of those capacities
• Technology training approaches that integrate social
issue awareness (e.g.: HKI manual)
• Strategic gender initiatives to foster change in norms,
attitudes and practices for positive development
outcomes (e.g. Communications for social change
campaigns targeting different groups)
• Supporting collective action and networks

19. Thank you!
Research for development initiatives whose goal is
to typically fill “gender gaps” and focus “…on the
separate characteristics of women and men rather
than on the way that social institutions work
together to create and maintain advantages and
disadvantages” are highly problematic and fail to
sustainably reduce gaps in poverty between women
and men (Okali 2011)