Addressing the Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Women in the Coral Triangle Region

The USAID Sustainable Fish Asia (SUFIA) Local Capacity Development (LCD) Activity, as part of their Gender and Inclusive Development Plan, worked with regional organizations and their partners to identify and address issues and challenges facing women working in the fisheries sector.

SUFIA LCD collaboratively worked with the Coral Triangle Initiative on Coral Reefs, Fisheries and Food Security (CTI-CFF), a multilateral partnership of six coral triangle countries working together to promote sustainable fisheries management and marine biodiversity. Established under the CTI-CFF, the Women Leaders’ Forum (WLF) is a peer-learning network of over 200 women working in marine and coastal conservation. It supports women through leadership, empowerment, networking, and technical training. WLF plays a key role in providing an avenue and platform for women and other disadvantaged groups in the Coral Triangle region to make significant differences through strategic programs and projects and raising their profile and demands on bigger platforms.

During a meeting of CTI-CFF’s WLF in 2021, members expressed a desire to take action to address the impacts of COVID-19 on women in fisheries through understanding how women in the Coral Triangle region were coping with the issues brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, and how they were addressing them, in order to develop an action plan for future collaboration among WLF members and relevant partners.

To respond to the request from WLF members, on May 25, 2022, USAID SUFIA LCD, in collaboration with USAID SUFIA Technical Support (TS) and the CTI-CFF Regional Secretariat, organized a learning exchange to hear participants’ experiences and learnings from the pandemic, as well as recommendations on what actions to take to work together towards gender equality and building back better.

Attendees included WLF members from Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Solomon Islands; several strategic partners, including the Coral Triangle Center, World Wildlife Fund-Pacific, and WorldFish; and the CTI-CFF Regional Secretariat.

Ms. Jasmin Mohd Saad, a Gender Equity and Social Inclusion Specialist working with the SUFIA TS Activity, facilitated the event and provided an overview of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the challenges women in fisheries are facing and how they are coping with these issues. She also presented on lessons learned from other regions, including Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean.

Ms. Chelcia Gomese (WorldFish, Solomon Islands) and Ms. Salome Topo (WWF-Pacific, Solomon Islands) shared experiences from their country, including how transportation was disrupted—affecting distribution of goods and services, and how local fish trade decreased due to buyers lacking cash.

“Those in urban areas in particular experienced loss of income and difficulty in securing food for their families. Kitchen gardens saved the day for those in the rural areas, by providing them necessary food. Most fishers still went out to catch fish but only for their families as they could not sell fish as markets were closed,” said Gomese.

Ms. Leilani Gallardo, Regional Communications Officer of the Coral Triangle Center in Indonesia, shared that it was necessary to emphasize women leadership training and sharing of lessons learned among the six countries that form the Coral Triangle through regional exchanges. She presented CTC’s initiatives in providing capacity building activities to promote women leadership, entrepreneurship, and empowerment.

“In 2022, we were able to conduct visits to the field and provided training to women involved in blue swimming crab fisheries in Lampung, and seaweed farming and processing in Nusa Penida marine protected area in Bali. For the women seaweed farmers, we helped them improve the marketing of their seaweed crackers to help them reach a wider market. For the women involved in blue swimming crab fisheries, we provided leadership and business training. We learned that the women were able to use byproducts of blue swimming crab processing to make crackers with blue swimming crab flavor, thereby utilizing ingredients that would otherwise be thrown away, into something useful,” said Gallardo.

Key takeaways from the learning exchange included:

• An acknowledgement that the pandemic exacerbated the existing challenges faced by women in fisheries and the small-scale fisheries sector.
• The importance of giving a voice to women and other marginalized groups who are otherwise excluded in decision making and policy development.
• The need for action to address the specific challenges faced by women and other marginalized groups. For example, lack of gender-disaggregated data means that relief interventions and operations are implemented without consideration of gender-differentiated needs exacerbated by gendered impacts from the pandemic.
• The importance of good governance in fisheries management and livelihoods development is a key factor in the resilience of coastal communities and the ability of local markets to sustain their trade.

To promote greater gender equity and social inclusion, participants provided input to a draft action plan aimed at providing recommended actions to working together towards gender equality and building back better.