About the project
The Blue empowerment project is a lowcarbon, gender transformative initiative, with the aim of contributing to tackling barriers for the empowerment of fisher women in the coastal region of Kenya. The project focuses on adoption of climatesmart integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (IMTA) of seaweeds and fish for improved livelihoods and resilience. It is anchored on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 on the crucial role of gender equality in development processes as well as in the Kenya Vision 2030. The expected main beneficiaries of the result of this project are women, and the core model will include building agency, resources, and institutional structures.
Project objectives
The Blue Empowerment Project aims tackle barriers for the empowerment of fisher women in Kenya's coastal region through adoption of climate-smart integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (IMTA) of seaweeds and fish for improved livelihoods and resilience.
Project Implementation
The project will engage the Beach Management Units (BMUs) ,technological institutions, women groups, private sector, policy makers and other stakeholders in the Blue Economy to study, co-design, deploy model IMTA farms and use them as platforms to gain practical insights , evidence and generate data for adoption towards sustainable development in the coastal region.
The methodological thrust of this project is a gender transformative approach that has been applied in recent studies (Gopal et al 2020) to generate insights that can challenge gender norms and relations in ways that can result in gender equality and economic empowerment of diverse categories of women in the target fisher community.
Project Work Streams
The project is implemented under the following 5 work streams:
Work Stream 1 (WS1)
Project Planning and Coordination
Work Stream 2 (WS2)
Profiling and documenting gender responsive challenges, potentials and opportunities
Work Stream 3 (WS3)
Mapping socio-technical pathways
Work Stream 4 (WS4)
Optimizing gender transformative fishseaweeds IMTA
Work Stream 5 (WS5)
Promoting knowledge translation, dissemination and learning
Project Outputs
The project will include technical, economic transformation, and knowledge translation relevant outputs.
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Technical Outputs (These would be outputs that could allow other research teams to reproduce the project, and would be available for upload on project partners and IDRC online libraries)
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Outputs with potential economic impacts: (These outputs would be strategic to enhance the capacity of women in Kilifi and Kwale, and the east African coast, to improve their income)
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Knowledge translation, visibility, and awareness outputs: (These outputs will be designed to increase public awareness on IMTA potential, during and after the projects lifetime)
