IUCN, with support from USAID, is implementing a conservation project in sites of high coastal biodiversity in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, with a focus on social inclusion, to strengthen community governance of natural resources in contexts free of gender-based violence.
“Incorporating a gender approach in environmental projects is key to contribute to the elimination of violence against women,” says Jackie Siles, gender specialist of IUCN’s Human Rights in Conservation Team.
Siles has been supporting the integration of gender within the Regional Coastal Biodiversity Project, a USAID-funded project for which IUCN leads a consortium on implementation that targets sites of high coastal biodiversity in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala since 2018.
According to IUCN research, gender-based violence is used as a form of socioeconomic control and increases in the context of environmental pressures. Siles confirms, noting that the gender analysis of the Regional Coastal Biodiversity Project uncovered complementary findings wherein, “this type of violence is anchored in the existence of unequal gender power dynamics in the ownership, access, use and distribution of the benefits derived from natural resources and affects the participation of women in conservation actions”.
Present throughout the value chain, women assume roles in catching, processing, marketing, distribution and leadership. However, gender inequalities persist that prevent their full participation in economic opportunities and decision making; restricting the potential of the sector’s sustainability as well as food and economic security goals.
Through AGENT support on Advancing Gender in the Environment, a IUCN and USAID partnership, a participatory gender analysis was conducted – involving 178 people (140 women and 38 men). Findings showed that women have less access to fishing licenses, financing, training, technology, technical assistance and participation in decision-making than men. In addition to making women’s roles visible in the harvesting, processing and marketing of fish – as well as owners or co-owners of fishing vessels – the analysis also identified the presence of gender-based violence in some of the activities of the value chain. Women in local communities can face intimate partner violence within the household, as well as sexual harassment and abuse in processing plants or while fixing nets.
“Based on the gender analyses, we built a comprehensive and transformative gender strategy, to incorporate gender in implementation and also in our monitoring, evaluation and learning processes,” details the Regional Coastal Biodiversity Project coordinator, Zulma de Mendoza.
An action plan was then designed to integrate the needs and interests of women, men, youth and Indigenous Peoples in the project’s biotrade, governance and sustainable landscape management actions to reduce gender gaps, improve livelihoods and strengthen the governance of marine-coastal resources. To date, the Regional Coastal Biodiversity Project has supported the economic empowerment of 232 women through the Small Grants Program, including 10 organizations with more than 30% of women in them. In addition, 217 women and 45 men have been trained in the integration of gender in biocommerce enterprises based on the management of fishery and coastal resources. And 442 people (48% women) were trained in environmental legislation, management plans, community organization and gender focus. The Regional Coastal Biodiversity Project has also built the capacities of five organizations to implement gender-sensitive actions and of one men’s organization to promote gender equality in the project sites. Twenty-two government technicians in agriculture and fisheries were also trained on the importance of gender and fisheries governance.