New blog entry by Pétur Waldorff, "Left Out to Dry? Gender and Fisheries on Lake Tanganyika"
Dr. Pétur Waldorff, UNU-GEST Senior Researcher, has published an article on our "Gender Full Spectrum" joint Blog Series (in partnerhip with UNU-MERIT) featuring his work on a Gendered Value Chain Analysis on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, Tanzania, a region marked by extreme poverty yet blessed by vast resources of fish, in a research partnership done with the United Nations University Fisheries Training Programme (UNU-FTP), Iceland.
In his piece, Dr. Pétur reflects on his experience in Tanzania and highlights several aspects from his research and field work done by the shores of Lake Tanganyika where he and his colleagues from UNU-FTP worked in close relationship with the local community and particularly, the women. It features the situation of women in the fishing economy and the important roles they play, althought they have been traditionally undervalued. Dr. Pétur arguments that "because jobs are often divided by gender, Value Chain Analysis can help us capture not only economic aspects but also the gender-based division of labour, discrimination and social impacts of change within the chain. For example, while men dominate the work of fishing on Lake Tanganyika, women take the lead in drying, smoking and selling fish."
The article also hightlights that "gender discrimination in the value chains of small-scale fisheries stems from the low value attached to women’s work – a problem further entrenched by their limited access to credit, processing and storage technology and facilities, and training. So, although women play important roles in this sector, they have less access to resources, assets and decision making processes, which confines them to the lower ends of value chains and the informal sector in many developing countries."
Pétur's research shows that women are the ‘first out’ when catch rates fall or automatic industrial machinery takes over, as it has alrerady happened along the landing sites of Lake Victoria (northeast of Lake Tanganyika) where technological upgrading, development efforts, and increased privatisation have displaced many women fish traders and processors.
We invite you to read the full article and check the "Gender Full Spectrum" Blog Series.
About the author:
Dr. Pétur Waldorff is a Senior Researcher at UNU-GEST, the EDDA Center at the University of Iceland, and the Nordic Africa Institute at Uppsala University in Sweden. His research looks at gendered value chain analysis in the context of gender, climate change and resilience.
Pétur Waldorff
Senior Researcher