Co-management, gender and organizational development
 

Gender and organizational development are two important aspects of the co-management process, the aim being to reduce poverty.
Interview conducted by G. Heidrich, A. Lassissi & P. Zantou**

Liaison Bulletin: First and foremost, let’s agree on the definition of the concepts.  How would you define co-management, gender and organizational development?

Katrien Holvoet: Co-management is the management of a resource with a view to protecting it and ensuring its sustainability. This implies the participation of the population and all other stakeholders. There is a key concept behind co-management: power sharing between the owners or agents managing the resource, and users of the resource. It contributes to social well-being.

Within the context of the Sustainable Fisheries Livelihoods Programme (SFLP), gender has to do with the relationship between men and women. It is expressed in terms of the social roles of men and women, through structures and rules that the community values. In a way, it has to do with behavioural factors that create depen-dence relationships. It is obvious that women’s groups and men’s groups are not homogenous. Within each group are differences based on age, culture, socio-economic status, etc. The SFLP takes these differences into account in its analysis of gender, without forgetting the differences that also exist between men and women’s capacity to access and control capital assets (resources, credit, power, etc.).

Let’s now talk about organizational development …

Organizational development (OD) is the process of accompanying change in organizations, and learning about its consequences, with a view to making them more effective and more efficient in achieving their objective, which could be social, economic or political in nature. When we talk about change at organizational level, we are naturally referring to the relationship between the members of the organization concerned, and the way power is shared among them. OD contributes to reflections on the role of each member in managing the affairs of the organization. It can therefore stimulate the dynamics that affect the power-sharing system in place, which is usually a source of conflict. It is in this latter sense that OD can be said to be a learning process for conflict management.

The way the SFLP sees it, organizational development is not synonymous with simply setting up organizations. The SFLP supports emerging groups, but by monitoring the dynamics initia-ted by the stakeholders themselves. As a matter of fact, the SFLP accompanies groups that are already established, with the aim of strengthening their social dialogue and negotiation skills to ensure the sustainable development of their community. Organizational development also strengthens the efforts of organizations to build up their skills in developing sustainable partnerships with government, institutions, the private sector, civil society and development partners. Organizational development makes it possible for fishing communities to strengthen their internal cohesion, and to open up to other development stakeholders.

Providing support in organizational development means that decision-making and responsibility for the activities to be undertaken are that of the community-based organizations that are being supported. The role of the OD specialist is limited to teaching some technical aspects, for example, in setting up an internal audit system. Briefly put, more than anything else, the OD specialist plays the role of facilitator during the brainstorming, review and change processes.

The peculiarities of the fishing sector are such that there are relatively few organizations and the umbrella structures are still weak. Organizational development in this context aims first and foremost to strengthen organizations, but it also gives room for the development of viable strategies that will promote the establishment of umbrella structures with more solid capacities and powers to negotiate with the administration, industrial fishermen, etc. The communities that have participated in an organizational development exercise thus become better positioned to get involved in co-management and local development processes.

What are the linkages between co-management, gender and organizational development?

Co-management, gender and organizational development call for power and responsibility sharing, sustainability, and equity. The implementation of any one of these concepts is aimed at ensuring access to the resource and its sustainable exploitation, equity in its control, and responsibility-sharing within social groups. Since the goal here is to improve the livelihoods of the community, the marginalized and the poor, our Programme considers it useful to set up mechanisms that will make it possible for the aspirations of all stakeholders to be taken into consideration, while still emphasizing the issue of equity.

A clear perception of iniquity within and between social groups facilitates proper decision-making that will advance the well-being of the community. Finally, in order to design and implement a co-management plan that will ensure the participation of all stakeholders, we consider it necessary to integrate supporting activities based on the gender profile of the community. The same goes for the development plan of socio-professional organizations. In this way, a fisheries resources co-management plan can help to improve the livelihoods of the vulnerable groups, and by extension, reduce poverty in the community.  As a matter of fact, a good analysis of the different categories of the poor makes it possible to take the appropriate support measures, and to verify the impact of co-management on each social group. This, of course, will be based on gender-sensitive indicators.

Co-management is only beneficial to the society to the same extent that it is beneficial to the resource. In reducing people’s vulnerability by developing for example, income-generating activities, they are enabled to exert less pressure on the resource. In contrast, if the assistance provided ends up making them more marginalized, they would have no other choice but to continue exploiting the resource by any means at their disposal, including the most harmful means and methods. In Burkina Faso for example, it was observed that if certain facilities are not put in place in villages around Lake Bagré (in the form of livelihoods diversification and access to different services, especially health and education), the poor, whose only asset is open access to the lake, will find it difficult to respect the measures put in place to ban fishing in some seasons, nor will they abandon illegal fishing practices. To achieve the expected results, all these parameters were put into consideration in the co-management plan implemented in Bagré. It is obvious that if the wealthiest groups do not make any effort to avoid margina-lizing the poorer groups, they, in the long run, will be risking the total depletion of the resource.

What aspects of co-management do men and women fear?

Talking about fear, one can raise the issue of the possibility that there would not be enough social communication and information around the process, and if it exists at all, that it will not take traditional know-how into consideration. Add to this, the often observed incapacity of technical officers and development projects representatives to perceive the tendency of leaders of wealthier groups in communities to arrogate to themselves, all powers relating to the co-management process.

The depletion of the resource increases the vulnerabi-lity of communities, and co-management can help to reverse this trend by promoting the welfare of the communities.In a co-management context, thought should also be given to the impact of the measures taken in favour of women, whose activities only begin after the catch. This is however not always the case, although co-management also affects post-harvest stakeholders.

At Agbodjèdo in Benin, a study on gender and credit showed that fish processors that do not have enough financial resources to diversify into other income-generating activities will become even more dependent on the richer people, if the co-management measures on the resource (seasonal closing of fishing, banning of small-sized meshes, etc) are applied. The negative effects will also be felt by poor fishermen and their families. The cost of maintaining the family will add to the burden of mainly the fishermen’s wives, since their husbands rarely have other income-generating activities. It is often the wives who have to diversify their activities, and the alternatives at their disposal are not always the most wholesome. These are the fears of some stakeholders.

It is important to involve all the social groups in the process of drawing up a co-management plan, with the hope of conducting an all-embracing brainstorming session that will take the concerns of al parties concerned into account. This presupposes the development of a methodology or strategy to promote equitable strengthening of all stakeholders. Also to be considered is a communication strategy that will make it possible for the marginalized to listen and to talk to development representatives.

What benefits do the communities derive, or could derive from co-management?

Next to the advantages already mentioned earlier, other advantage are: the access to infrastructure, involvement in management, support to the development of alternative income generating activities, the restoration of the resource, the reduction of conflicts and an improved communication between the institutions and the fisheries communities.

What roles should socio-professional organizations play to avoid marginalizing some new groups, especially the poor and women, in the co-management process?

To ensure equitable sharing between men and women, some socio-professional organizations involved in co-management favour the analysis of the modalities guiding their operations and structures, especially where gender issues are concerned.  This analysis is generally facilitated by resource persons who know how to guide negotiation and change in organizations.