Buisson, Marie-Charlotte

Meaningfully engaging women in accessing and controlling benefits from agriculture and the broader development agenda has largely remained a source of disillusionment within the development arena. More recently, there has been an increase in the use of Multistakeholder Platforms (MSP) by several actors within the CGIAR and beyond. Multi-Stakeholder Dialogues aim to ensure that there is a discussion on challenges facing communities within the different landscapes and how solutions are crafted to address the challenges through practical development interventions. This paper, firstly, engages with literature on Multistakeholder Platforms and how gender equality and social inclusion can be made intentional by including women and youths in the processes. Secondly, through the practical implementation of the Aquatic Foods Initiative in Zambia, the actual assessments and practical implementation are being monitored and critiqued through the process documentation of MSP implementation to ensure that women and youths are included. The documentation goes beyond inclusion to document the outcomes as a result of women and youth inclusion. Thirdly, this paper situates MSPs within the broader CGIAR’s MSPs’ Community of Practice to draw further common threads across different contexts, different resources and across different scales. The early findings demonstrate that it is possible to engage women and youths in the designing, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the MSPs. Such engagement needs to be intentional and must invest time and resources in ensuring that participation goes beyond attendance to informing and influencing the priorities and even going further to ensure those priorities are implemented and reflected upon.

Fish is an important food in Ghana, accounting for 60% of the national dietary animal protein. However, fisheries production, mainly from capture fisheries, has declined in recent years with deficit being offset by fish imports valued at over $200 million annually. This offers opportunity for expanding the aquaculture sub sector to bridge the gap, particular among small scale farmers and youth. In 2018, the Government of Ghana launched the Aquaculture for Food and Jobs (AFJ) program to enhance fish production, create employment opportunities, and promote sustainable aquaculture practices particularly among the youth and women. This was in line with the government's medium-term vision to use the aquaculture sub-sector to increase domestic fish production and generate additional jobs along the aquaculture value chain. Following this initiative, group-based aquaculture is being undertaken in community small reservoirs, ponds and lakes across various regions in Ghana. This study unpacks lessons from different experiences of youth group-based aquaculture in 13 communities which are either supported by government or development agencies. Using the Ostrom (1990) principles, we assess the sustainability and the contributing factors of these youth group-based aquaculture projects. The preliminary findings shows that even though technical capacity building, institutional support and initial capital support are essential, social dynamics such as group cohesion, group composition and enterprise development trainings are very critical for sustainability of these projects. For projects undertaken in community owned reservoirs, acceptance of such projects by community leaders and members is pivotal. In all cases, theft, natural disasters such as flooding, high cost of fish feed, and marketing remain a challenge and there is need to identify private sector partnership, financing and insurance schemes to foster sustainability