THE BURDEN OF INVISIBILITY: A CASE STUDY OF THE FISHERIES CRISIS IN GHANA, AND USAID/GHANA SUSTAINABLE FISHERIES MANAGEMENT PROJECTâ•ŽS GENDER MAINSTREAMING STRATEGY

The Sustainable Fisheries Management Project’s primary goal is to create a more sustainable artisanal fishery in Ghana, in order to increase food security within the nation. One of SFMP’s strategies within this fisheries-based project was to implement a gender mainstreaming strategy in order to empower previously overlooked women stakeholders. This chapter will present the results of a study on the impacts of SFMP’s gender mainstreaming strategy on members of Ghana’s artisanal fisheries sector. This study focuses on impacts primarily associated with fishers, fish processors, members of client and partner organizations, as well as the organizations themselves, and on the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development. In order to answer the guiding questions addressed below, this study uses a contextual analysis, and field data in the form of key informant and focus group interviews collected in June of 2018, in the third year of the implementation of SFMP’s gender mainstreaming strategy. The guiding questions of this study are: 1. At the grassroots, organizational, and governmental scales, what have been the impacts of SFMP’s gender mainstreaming strategy? 2. At the grassroots, organizational, and governmental scales, to what extent has gender been mainstreamed within the Ghanaian artisanal fisheries sector? 3. With regards to SFMP programming and activities, what factors have affected/led to the current level of gender mainstreaming within Ghana’s artisanal fisheries sector? 4. With regards to SFMP programming and activities, what factors have affected the equity of women in Ghana’s artisanal fisheries communities. Results illustrate that at the grassroots, organizational, and governmental levels this strategy has resulted in ‘mainstreaming light’ rather than a fully integrated mainstreaming, and thus fails to avoid further marginalizing and burdening women. In order to create gender integration based on true empowerment, the Ghanaian fisheries sector should more thoroughly mainstream gender on all levels, and future fisheries development projects should consider gender strategies that address the roots of women’s oppression, rather than focusing on empowerment rooted in goals relating to sustainable fisheries.

The terms "first and third world," or "developed and undeveloped countries" highlight and uphold divisions and classifications, specifically between the reformer and those that need to be reformed, or the inferior and the accomplished savior (Escobar, 1995). In this paper I will use the terms the "global north" and the "global vi south," mainly as social rather than geographic terms. Global South nations will be a term used to characterize "politically and economically vulnerable states," however, I also include marginalized communities in developed nations within the "south" designation, and entitled communities in impoverished countries within the "north" designation (Pellow, 2007).
Finally, a major premise within this research rests on the idea of equity.
Within this paper, equity will be defined as " the fair treatment, access, opportunity, and advancement for all people, while at the same time striving to identify and eliminate barriers that have prevented the full participation of some groups"    My perspective is one of privilege. In this paper I will try to address a few of the impacts of imperialism, colonialism, neocolonialism, and neoliberalism as they relate to marine fisheries and gender, women and development. This is especially important to address because I benefit from the impacts of these political ecologies, Human beings have depended on the ocean for food and local economies for a very long time (Paine, 2013). It is important to note, however, that technological advancement, societal values, and scientific discovery alter the conditions of ocean exploitation. For instance, before the days of accurate maps and engines, the comparatively small Mediterranean Sea was thought to be so vast that one could not even imagine the long dark odysseys awaiting a traveler at the edges of the known world.
For hundreds of years, while European explorers crossed oceans, asserted territories in the name of their kings and queens, and claimed natural resources for their homeland, they also divided the ocean (Lewis, 1999). For example, in 1471 Portuguese explorers arrived on the coast of what is now called Ghana, looking to profit off of the area by enslaving humans, and mining stolen gold (McLaughlin &

FIGURE 1 LAKE MALAWI, MONGOCHI SOUTHERN REGION
Owusu-Ansah 1994). By acting in this way, western nations established a uniquely European policy of organizing the ocean as a means for projecting power and generating wealth (Steinberg, 2001;Chandra, 1987). By the 1800s it had become a norm for nation states to claim domination over the marine waters and resources adjacent to the terrestrial boundaries of their home-nations, and of the territories they colonized (Anand, 1983;Mancke, 1999;Paine, 2013). In 1867 the territory that is now called Ghana was colonized as the "Gold Coast" by the British (McLaughlin & Owusu-Ansah 1994).
Maritime authority of this time traditionally extended up to three nautical miles beyond the coastline, or the maximum distance that could be reached by a cannon (Koh, 1987). Today countries claim political jurisdiction up to 12 nautical miles, and economic jurisdiction up to 200 miles outward from their coasts as agreed upon in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. This paper will focus here, on the pieces of marine ecosystems that are governed by nations themselves, rather than the high seas, or areas beyond national jurisdiction. Though nations did not know it at the time, focusing national economic priorities on coastal waters not only makes sense from a political standpoint, but also from a geophysical one.
The ocean is a fluid and three-dimensional entity, where currents circulate around the globe, and fish live within this unbound space (Lewis, 1999;Steinberg, 2001;Steinberg, 2013). However, there are certain biological and physical conditions that create a division between areas in the ocean with large amounts of fish, and areas with very few living organisms (Pinet, 2013). If you think about it from a terrestrial perspective, rainforests can sustain a large number of organisms, forests a moderate number, and deserts can sustain a relatively low number of living things. The most fertile areas of the ocean, akin to rainforests, are called coastal upwelling regions, and tend to be located in waters near the equator along the western edges of landmasses (Pinet, 2013). Moderate numbers of marine organisms can be found in other coastal regions and along continental shelves, while the centers of oceans, the high seas, can be regarded as areas of ocean deserts (Pinet, 2013). The coast of Ghana is located in a coastal upwelling region (Pinet, 2013).
Most of the world's valuable fish species are located in the nutrient rich waters close to the coast (Hsu and Wilen, 1997). Figure 2 demonstrates this variation in terms of the amount of phytoplankton, or 'the bottom' of marine food chains, produced per year. Unfortunately, it was not until many coastal fish populations had already been overfished that scientists realized these spatial differences.

Industrialization
Modern fisheries research began in the middle of the nineteenth century, as people in the US and Northern Europe began to notice an alarming decline in certain coastal fish stocks (Green, 1952;Royce, 1985). During this time, an international pattern emerged where biologists and oceanographers broadened the basic scientific understanding of marine ecosystems through narrow, isolated, and specialized experiments (Royce, 1985). The amount of scientific research on marine fisheries slowly increased, but this new data had little effect on management, until about the 1950s (Cunningham, 1981). Between the late 1940s and the early 1970s, fishery production had been increasing at a rate of "seven percent annually, or doubling every decade," (Royce, 1985). After WWII ended in 1945 technologies developed for war, such as fast boats and sonar, started being used in the fisheries sector (Greenburg and Worm, 2015). Fishers caught more fish more effectively, and were able to move farther from shore (FAO, 1995). As coastal fish populations were overfished and their populations plummeted, fishers moved further and further offshore hoping to find new and thriving stocks. Those waters previously unreachable by most fishing boats, now known as ocean deserts, did not hold the abundance of marine life the fishers expected. Like most other ecosystems, the rapid pace of technological developments from the mid 20 th century negatively affected both coastal and deep-sea marine ecosystems (Desombre, 2006).

FIGURE 3 WORLD CAPTURE FISHERIES AND AQUACULTURE PRODUCTION (SOFIA, 2018)
Where the ocean had once been too large to fathom and as such its resources were deemed inexhaustible, plummeting fish stocks in the 1950s and 1960s taught society that marine resources are finite (FAO, 1996;Desombre, 2006). As technological advances resulted in depleted fisheries, scientific discoveries hoped to ameliorate these effects. Beyond biological and physical studies, scientists started looking to merge biology with economics in order to figure out how to make sure the world 'caught the right amount' (Cunningham, 1981). During this time, fisheries conservation treaties proliferated, though truly effective marine resource management techniques combining sound science and enforceable policies remained elusive (Desombre, 2006;Royce, 1985).

The Great Transition
Around the 1970s, with many fish species on the edge of extinction as a result of overfishing and habitat degradation, marine fisheries stakeholders all over the world began to advocate for new plans and policies for their sector (Desombre, 2006). One The MSFCMA established and very specifically outlined how the US would manage a highly migratory wild animal that was neither terrestrial and easily observed, nor respectful of state boundaries (Steinberg, 2013). By using a nested system of governance, the MSFCMA is designed to construct a balance of powers between local, state, and federal management agencies, and a balance of economic and social benefits between the various fisheries stakeholders (Nixon et al, 2010). There have since been hundreds of similar plans made around the world for national and local governments.
Five years later, in 1982, after decades of debate between and within nations, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) was adopted and signed as an international treaty. Where the MSFCMA signaled a new beginning of regional fisheries management plans within a nation, UNCLOS universally defined a nation's right and responsibility to help manage the world's ocean. UNCLOS also gave an international legal basis on which a coastal nation state has authority over any natural resource within 200 miles of their coast (Harrison, 2011). The ratification of the "exclusive economic zone" (EEZ) concept broadened national jurisdiction from the traditional 3-12 miles, and includes 90% of the world's fisheries (Hsu and Wilen 1997;Desombre, 2006;FAO, 1995). Claiming their EEZ enabled many countries to benefit from the control over or elimination of foreign fishing fleets, and legitimized national authority in federal waters (Royce, 1985). As a result, nations all over the world were encouraged to create their own domestic plans for sustainable fisheries management. Ghana ratified UNCLOS and declared their EEZ on June 7 th , 1983(UN, 2019. The ratification of UNCLOS empowered nations to remove foreign fishing fleets and monitor their own domestic fleets. The proliferation of sub-national, regional and domestic sustainable fisheries management plans following the 1970s was a step towards global sustainable fishing. However, by the 1990s management techniques had generally failed to protect marine resources from being overexploited, and though the global rate of growth in fisheries sectors had slowed, it did not stop or decrease (Grainger, 1999;SOFIA, 2016). Fishing was still happening at an unsustainable rate (Hsu, Wilen, 1997).

FIGURE 4 TREND IN THE TOTAL TONNAGE OF THE WORLDS DECKED FISHING VESSELS BROKEN DOWN BY CONTINENT (GRAINGER, 1999)
In  (Grainger, 1999). During this time, of the 30 countries most dependent on fish as a protein source, all but 4 were in the global south (Grainger, 1999).
In a 1999 workshop about "Trends and Future Challenges for U.S. National Ocean and Coastal Policy," UN FAO employee Richard Grainger presented to US NOAA employees about global fishing trends. The materials from this presentation indicates that some of the main reasons for the continued global overexploitation of fisheries resources included; "a lack of political resolution to make difficult adjustments,…a lack of consideration of rights and potential contribution of traditional economies, and a lack of capacity for implementation of management in developing countries." International aid agencies had worked with fisheries programs in the global south previously, but by the late 1990s decided that more attention needed to be paid to effectively managing these ecosystems. Though small-scale fishing communities may have managed their own resources historically, over the past couple centuries transformative political powers of the west de-legitimized traditional systems of marine governance, led to a break down in old systems, and left a problematic governance gap (FAO, 1995;FAO, 2016;Courtney and Jhaveri, 2017).
The rest of this paper will focus on fisheries in the global south, specifically on artisanal fisheries which fall within the "small scale" fisheries categorization (FAO, 2016). Besides the artisanal sector, small scale fisheries also include commercial and subsistence fishers, but not the industrial (Courtney and Jhaveri, 2017). In the 1990s, and even today, scientists state that small-scale fisheries in the global south have "so far been invisible within the global fisheries sector, even though they play a pivotal role in meeting food needs and in building local as well as global economies," (Grainger, 1999;FAO, 2016;Courtney, 2017).
While industrial fishing vessels are largely responsible for most of the global decline in fisheries, each year small scale fisheries catch almost the same amount of fish and employ 25 times the number of fishers than their larger counterparts (Courtney and Jhaveri, 2017). They also provide much of the fish that are sold locally, providing community sourced nutrition, while industrial fleets are more likely to export their catch (FAO, 2016). Additionally, research on catch reconstructions indicates that the quantity of wild fish from developing countries may actually be much higher and therefore more unsustainable than previously reported (Siles et.al, 2019).

Fisheries and Development
"The FAO estimates that a quarter of the world's fisheries are overexploited or depleted, with half fully exploited" -SOFIA, 2016 When countries fail to manage their fisheries, they risk decimating fish populations and marine ecosystems such that they cannot recover (Pinet, 2013). They also contribute to the $50 billion dollars that are lost each year from the marine fisheries sector due to poor governance (FAO, 2016  which will be talked about in the next chapter (Nkrumah, 1965;Strobel, 1993;Said, 1993;Hoogvelt, 2001;Davids, 2013;Larrain, 2013;FAO, 2016;Olcott, 2017). One of the ways nations have decided to address the fisheries governance gap in the global south is through international development organizations.
Across the world there are hundreds if not thousands of international aid organizations that seek to 'develop' certain countries and communities. When referencing this type of work, the word development itself is rather problematic, in that it creates hegemonic and therefore misrepresentative constructions. As stated previously, like the terms "first and third world," the words "developed and underdeveloped" highlight and uphold divisions and classifications, specifically between the reformer and those that need to be reformed, or the inferior and the accomplished savior (Escobar, 1995). However, in his book Development as Freedom, Amartya Sen argues that development can be seen as "a process of expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy… development requires the removal of major sources of unfreedom: poverty as well as tyranny, poor economic opportunities as well as systemic social deprivation, neglect of public facilities as well as intolerance or over activity of repressive states." The dissonance between these two perspectives of development remain problematic, and will continue to be a theme as this paper begins to focus specifically on fisheries governance solutions promoted by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
On its homepage, USAID states that it is "is the world's premier international development agency and a catalytic actor driving development results. USAID's work advances U.S. national security and economic prosperity, demonstrates American generosity, and promotes a path to recipient self-reliance and resilience." Founded in 1961 by John F. Kennedy, USAID is an independent agency of the United States Government which administers aid and assistance to over 100 countries (USAID, 2017). Currently, the organization's development projects fit under one of the following nine sectors; agriculture and food security, democracy and human rights, economic growth and trade, education, environment and global climate change, gender equality and women's empowerment, global health, water and sanitation, and working and crises and conflict (USAID, 2019).
Historically, USAID investments in fisheries programming prioritized environmental conservation objectives (Courtney, 2017). Now, the focus is shifting from increasing biodiversity to promoting capable and effective ecosystem governance systems (Courtney, 2017;Cadmus, 2018). In recent years, USAID's fisheries and marine biodiversity projects have represented $40 billion per year in investments, in more than 15 countries in Southeast Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean (Cadmus, 2018). These projects have fallen into one of two groups, either 'biodiversity programming', funded through the environmental sector, or 'food security and economic growth programming,' funded through the agriculture or economic sectors. Biodiversity programming tends to focus on conserving habitats and ecosystems through good policy and management, while food security and economic growth programming tends to have more short-sighted and specific food security, livelihoods, or economic growth objectives (Cadmus, 2019).

Preview
This project unfolds over five chapters. Chapter one briefly explored the history of fisheries science and management, and ended with a look into the current involvement of USAID in fisheries development projects. Chapter two will more fully explore the history of 'development' through a feminist lens, in order to contextualize the current relationship between the global north, the global south, and gender.
Chapter 3 will build upon and tie together these histories, by studying to changing attitudes and contexts," (Bennett, 2005). Specifically, I will illustrate that since women are often invisible participants in the fisheries sector worldwide, projects involving gender, fisheries, and development must be extra aware of the potential negative impacts associated with using women as key "new" stakeholders in marine governance. Chapter Five will end this paper with recommendations and prescriptions for fisheries development programs moving forward.

CHAPTER 2 -WOMEN, GENDER, DEVELOPMENT
One of the goals of this thesis is to contribute to the constantly evolving critiques of international development work by focusing specifically on fisheries development projects from a gendered lens. In order to more fully understand gendered perspectives in this kind of work, Chapter 2 will explore both the history and current status of transnational feminist thought, as it relates to development.
Transnational feminism will be defined here as a theory and a commitment to recognizing differences between women all over the world, while also building solidarity, empowerment and transcending borders (Mendoza, 2002;Sarat, 2010).
While feminist and development ideologies of the past are rooted in the problematic histories of imperialism, neocolonialism, and neoliberalism, more recent literature on gender in the global south is critical of these strategies and offers useful perspectives rooted in equity instead.
First, Chapter 2 will briefly examine critical moments in history that directly impacted both feminist and development theories, strategies, and practice. It will then provide evidence, as feminist critiques have for decades, supporting the idea that "adding women to the stir," is not enough to achieve true empowerment. Development that is truly by and for women who have been marginalized in the global south must instead look to fundamentally different strategies (Porter and Judd,199). Chapter 2 will end by arguing that current development practices of empowerment must shift focus from simply including women to understanding and uprooting the true sources of their oppression.
As stated in Chapter 1, in order to navigate smoothly through the histories of feminist thought, international development, and marine fisheries, this thesis categorizes time periods as Imperial, Neocolonial, Neoliberal, and "Looking Forward." In order to categorize and thus explore different histories of feminist thought, Chapter 2 will rely upon the "wave" metaphor. This periodization of the history of women's activism both "bear's the imprint of white Western feminism" and is seen as "an appealing way to find parallels with movements in other countries," (Molony and Nelson, 2017). The wave metaphor will be used here because of its historical significance and navigational efficiency, though its need to be modified is recognized.
While certain decades are often excluded from the wave metaphor, this historical exploration of feminist and development ideologies operates instead under the assumption that paradigm shifts in transnational feminism, international development, and global fisheries management take time (Molony and Nelson, 2017).
These changes are not necessarily bound by years, but instead are denoted by major events and the individual actions that result. These global ideologies do not start or stop by exact parameters, instead each new improvement is a development upon the last where each wave eventually "overwhelms and exceeds its predecessor" (Hewit, 2010).
The time period between the 1800s and following WWII is one of imperialism, relates to First Wave Feminism, and is often identified by the Women's Suffrage Movement (Strobel, 1993;Molony and Nelson, 2017). Second Wave Feminism is said to have reached its height in the 1960s and 1970s, and coincides with decolonization and democratic freedoms in the global south, and the rise of Neocolonialism (Nkrumah, 1965;Hoogvelt, 2001). This period of feminism is often identified colloquially as "bra-burning." Third wave feminism is said to have started in the 1990s, as a result of the previous generation's western, racially exclusive, and sexually dichotomous tendencies (Molony and Nelson, 2017). This wave is often defined by its "indefinability." Fourth Wave Feminism is said to have started in the early 2010s, strives for intersectionality, and uses social media as a major platform for equity. One can only guess how future historians will categorize this time period.

First Wave Feminism and Imperialism
In order to generate wealth and power, beginning in the 1500s European nations started colonizing other continents (Escobar, 1995;Diamond, 1997;Larrain, 2013). 'Homeland' nations of imperial empires decimated the populations, cultures, and environments of their colonies and territories (Diamond, 1997;Larrain, 2013).
The colonizers were able to do this, not because of some sort of inherent superiority in European peoples, but instead due to thousands of years of geographic and ecological differences between continents (Diamond, 1997;Mann, 2005). Imperial practices of pillaging and enslavement allowed colonizers to gain financial, political, and cultural currency from the colonized (Burton, 1992;Strobel, 1993;Escobar, 1995;Diamond, 1997;Mann, 2005;Larrain, 2013). The global north was therefore able to progress democracies, increase the standard of living for their citizens, and industrialize, while at the same time obstructing the global south from these developments (Escobar, 1995;Larrain, 2013). The years between the mid nineteenth and mid twentieth centuries were characterized by these imperial ideas, and represent the 'first wave' of feminism.
Also known as 'the woman's suffrage movement,' first wave feminism began in 1848 in the U.S. and in 1865 in Britain (Burton, 1992;NWHM, 2019). These movements share cultural and political roots with imperialistic ideologies, and as such empire played a very important role in the initial feminist 'wave' (Burton, 1992;Strobel, 1993;Snieder, 1994;Clancy Smith and Gouda, 1998). For instance, western feminists of this time did not view the women of the global south as equals, be it in Great Britain's colonies, or black communities in the U.S., but instead viewed them as helpless subjects in need of saving, or inferior second-class citizens (Strobel, 1993).
While suffragettes fought for "women's" rights, one of the most harmful attacks made against the fight for female emancipation was that it would also grant more privilege to non-whites (Burton, 1992) (Snieder, 1994. Thus, the movement's "strategies of expediency" made sure to preserve racial superiority by focusing PRIMARILY on white women's rights, and asserting the barbarity of non-whites (Strobel, 1993;Snieder, 1994). In fact, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, founder of the women's rights movements at Seneca Falls, has become "a model of nineteenthcentury white woman's rights advocates' willingness to preserve race hierarchy in the quest for sex equality," (Snieder, 1994).
First wave feminism is rooted in imperial ideas of racial superiority as well as moral responsibility. In order to secure an integral role in society once emancipated, activists in the Women's Movement legitimized the need for the redeemer and her refining abilities, by cementing the existence of the inferior (Burton, 1992). For example, during Britain's colonial rule over India, the notion that due to her "feminine virtues of nurturing, child care and purity," the white woman's burden, was 'the Indian Woman' (Burton, 1992), (Strobel, 1993). By upholding the notion of helpless, dependent clients in need of aid, first wave feminists "deliberately cultivated the civilizing responsibility" as their own womanly responsibility (Burton, 1992).
Like most of the waves to follow, first wave feminism was largely a liberal bourgeoise cause, and therefore limited its participants primarily to white, wealthy, higher class women (Strobel, 1993). This classism was not only exclusionary, but also helped lead to the view of 'progress' as a fight for modernity. This framed development in direct opposition to "traditional" or pre-industrial ways of life, a perspective that continues to this day (Hoogevelt, 2001;Moghadam, 2005;Larrain, 2013;Olcott, 2017). Additionally, while evangelical Christian themes did inform the Women's Movement's mission, the middle-class suffragists specifically separated themselves as a secular and therefore more modern cause (Burton, 1992). This distanced feminism even more from the 'traditional.'

Second Wave Feminism and Neocolonialism
In 1957, the Britain's "Gold Coast" colony gained independence under the name of Ghana. The 'Year of Independence,' refers to the 17 sub-Saharan nations that gained independence during 1960 (France 24, 2019). These emancipations were the result of years of hard work by pro-independence movements. However, though independence was declared in many nations around the world, during the middle of the twentieth century inequities between the global south and north remained (Nkrumah, 1965;Hoogevelt, 2001). In her book "Globalization and the Postcolonial Founded in 1977, the movement organized predominately women in rural Kenya to plant trees in order to restore their main sources of fuel for cooking, generate income, and stop soil erosion (Maathai, 2006). As a result of the Green Belt Movement, women were trained in forestry, food processing, beekeeping, and other livelihoods that both generate income while preserving lands and resources.
It is in this context, between the 1960s and the 1980s, that the similar but distinct gender focused, or pro-gender development approaches such as "women in development" (WID), "women and development" (WAD), "gender and development" (GAD), and "women, environment, and development" (WED) started being used as models for effective international aid programming (Rathberger, 1990;Leach, 2007;Momsen, 2010;Davids et al. 2013;Eerdewuk and Davids, 2014). The GAD and WED approaches will be most relevant to this study moving forward, though WID, WAD, and many other histories and strategic approaches to women, gender, and development exist. The brief history of second wave feminism and its implications laid out below is merely a taste of the much larger and controversial history of development and feminism.
To briefly summarize one of the initial pro-gender strategies of development that emerged during feminisms second wave, the WID approach was introduced in the 1960s, and highlights the need to include women into development agendas (Davids et al, 2013). This approach is inspired by theories of modernization, and thus had goals primarily associated with economic productivity and general efficiency (Rathberger, 1990). WID was the first step to globally recognizing the fact that women should be recognized as a part of the development process, though it did not address the systemic oppression of women within society. In response to the simply inclusionary WID, WAD emerged as a movement dedicated to massive social change.
WAD is categorized as socialist-Marxist, and works towards including women in the "utopian revolutionary change of the world's social, political, and economic orders" in order to benefit the oppressed (Davids et al. 2013). This approach was good in theory, in that it not only included women in development but also sought to destroy the systemic roots of women's oppression. However, in practice WAD focused mainly on the economic oppression of women, ignoring the reproductive aspects of oppression, and the importance of understanding gender roles in order to create beneficial change (Davids et al. 2013). Critiques of both WID and WAD can be found in figure 6 above.
In the 1980s, GAD shifted the approach from "integrating women into existing development processes" to focusing instead on the inequitable power relationships that "affect the position and opportunities of women and men"  (Eerdewijk and Davids, 2014). During this shift from WAD to GAD, WED emerged as another similar approach, centered in environmentalist and liberal feminist ideologies (Leach, 2007).
Like the waves of feminism, these different approaches to development did not start and stop in concrete spaces of time. Likewise, various agencies of development adopted and implemented the ideals of these approaches differently, in different communities, resulting in a variety of impacts. However, it is safe to say that where WID 'discovered' and then included women in development, GAD hoped to analyze gender relations, and then implement development strategies from a gendered lens. WID brought attention to the potential women actors of change in development, and GAD brought attention to the roots of women's oppression. Both GAD and WED are development strategies, the values of which can still be felt in international development programming today. WED is particularly present in development approaches to environmental problems (such as those relating to marine ecosystems). One of the theoretical bases of WED is ecofeminism.
Ecofeminists argue that both women and 'Gaia' create, nurture, and respect life, and women and nature are connected by a shared history of oppression by patriarchal institutions (Mies, 1986;Leach, 2007). Due to this, in the 1980s both ecofeminists and the WED approach argued that women have a special relationship with the environment, and are therefore especially empathic and altruistic in their environmental management (Jackson, 1993). WED also implied that because women in the global south spend so much time gathering from the natural environment, they are special victims of environmental degradation, and must then be environmental care givers and "key fixers of environmental problems" (Dankelman and Davidson, 1988;Leach, 2007). Thus, by helping women, you are also helping the environment, and vice versa. It was during this time period that images of a woman carrying firewood or a bucket of water on her head across a barren landscape, whose daily activities were so closely tied to the land and trees, became a development icon (Leach 2007).
Though WID, WAD, GAD, and WED were all pro-gender movements, they were a product of their imperialist past, present neocolonial context, and continued to maintain power inequities. By projecting a single idea of what it means to be a woman in the global south, or the "theoretical notion of a uniform category of women," imperialist/racist conceptions and practices were perpetuated (Mohanty, 1991;Davids et al, 2013). Chandra Talpade Mohanty's critiques this categorization of woman as a singular monolithic subject, as summarized by Kathryn Moeller, by: "building on the premise by western and non-western feminists of color that gender is necessary though not sufficient for understanding and theorizing the identities, experiences, conditions, and power relations informing lives lived across multiple social, cultural, economic, political, religious, and geographic locations. In relying solely on the concept of 'woman' as their central analytical category, and gender as the 'single axis' around which difference is understood, hegemonic western and Anglo-American feminisms often reduce and/or mask how difference operates in relation to and within gender categories" (Mohanty, 1991;Moeller, 2018).
By minimizing the variety of experiences of being a 'woman in the global south' into one uniform experience, each of these approaches have been criticized of ethnocentrism, classism, heteronormativity, and neocolonialism (Mohanty, 1991;Moore, 1994;Davids, et al, 2013). Additionally, relying on indicators of success based on data that merely differentiates and tallies the number of men and women participants perpetuates the negative effects of this minimization, and fails to accurately represent the true context in which women live. Data that are collected and presented separately on men and women is defined as "gender-disaggregated data." (UNESCO, 2003).
As the especially empathic Victorian white woman was especially suited to saving the helpless women in the colonies, the woman of the global south's closeness with nature meant she was best positioned to sustainably manage natural resources.
This WED approach to development was especially alluring to international aid organizations in that it combined environmental protection with pro-gender solutions, though it often meant women were given the burden of "saving the environment" without first exploring whether or not they had the resources or capacity to do so (Leach, 2007). Like WID, WAD, and GAD, the WED approach fails to contextualize the 'woman' experience, and so failed to address the fact that not all women experience oppression, their environment, or the effects of environmental degradation in the same way.
These histories and approaches represent only a small portion of the different strategies and programs engaging in work relating to gender, women, and development. Still, these brief explanations, especially those relating to GAD and WED, are fairly representative of the implications of pro-gender development strategies of the past and present. Women must be included in development, and environmentalism. However, the goal should not be inclusion, for the sake of representation, nor inclusion for the sake of efficient economic progress or environmental sustainability.
As strategies none of these approaches were able to truly contextualize the roots of individual or systemic oppression, and therefore were not able offer insightful, sustainable, and effective solutions. Simply writing a general, and neoliberal definition of oppression, or broadly prescribing solutions to inequity, fails to address the individual systemic oppressions each woman can experience differently. This means that one way pro-gender development remained ineffective was due to its lack of true insight into the real lives of women, the context they live in, and the impacts of western influence. By the 1990s, critiques of WID, WAD, GAD, and WED started to bring to light the double or triple burden the GAD (economic) and WED (environmental) approaches placed on already burdened women.

Third Wave Feminism and Neoliberalism
Third wave feminism is said to have started in the 1990s, as a result of the previous generation's western, racially exclusive, and gender binary tendencies In this way, the market becomes the guarantor of equality as the 'dream of women's emancipation is harnessed to the engine of capitalist accumulation," (Fraser, 2009;Moeller, 2018).
Though some may refer to the period of 1990s as "inclusive" neoliberalism, in that it focuses at least on poverty reduction and good governance over privatization and economic progress, the neoliberal agenda condenses progress as a quantitative analysis of profits and thus colors pro-gender development writings and communications with a "vocabulary of effectiveness, efficiency, impact assessment and 'smart' economics" (Craig and Porter, 2006;Davids at al, 2014). This can still be The idea for gender mainstreaming was first suggested in the 1985 UN Conference on Women in Nairobi. The final report from the meeting states "Women should be an integral part of the process of defining aims and shaping development ...Organizational and other means which enable women to contribute their interests and preferences into the evaluation and selection of alternative development goals should be identified" (UN 1986). Gender mainstreaming as a strategy was first formally featured in the 1995 UN Conference on Women in Beijing. While the term "gender mainstreaming strategy" was never explicitly referred to, the final document from the Beijing conference aptly describes the concept as it is known today: "Governments and other actors should promote an active and visible policy of mainstreaming a gender perspective in all policies and programs so that before decisions are taken, an analysis is made of the effects on women and men, respectively" (UN 1996). While this quote represents the first step towards the current conceptualization of gender mainstreaming, it should be noted that there are multiple different definitions of gender mainstreaming. The definition used by SFMP will be discussed later in this chapter, and can be found in Figure 10.
With GAD's shifted focus from including women in development to analyzing the reasons why women are often prevented from achieving equity, came the need for a complete change in development systems and strategies (Rathberger, 1990). With this backdrop, during a period of inclusive neoliberalism, gender mainstreaming was introduced as a concept and implemented as a strategy in order to address unequal relations of power. While prior WID, WAD, GAD and WED approaches to gender in development operated within their own women or gender-based programs, gender mainstreaming strategies promoted the integration of gender equality as an: "integral dimension of all development programs and policy-making processes... the idea of gender mainstreaming was, and is, that institutions, policy-making and decision-making processes themselves are gendered and therefore risk to reproduce inequalities. The implication of this idea is that gender equality cannot (only) be realized by separate and relatively isolated gender or women programs, but that policy-making institutions and processes themselves, at macro, meso and micro levels, need to be transformed." (emphasis added, Eerdewijk and Davids, 2014).
Gender mainstreaming attempts to include gender perspectives in the planning, implementation, and evaluation of all development programs. Rather than promote programs that relate specifically to gender, gender mainstreaming instead looks to improve upon all development work by bringing the 'gender' perspective to all development programs, not just those specifically designed to be gendered, and making visible the gendered nature of all assumptions, processes, and outcomes (Walby, 2005). The idea being that women's equity cannot be achieved through isolated programs, but development work as a whole must instead transform the entirety of its programming to include a gendered lens, from the grassroots to the UN (Eerdewijk and Davids, 2014;Walby, 2005;Davids et al, 2013).
Effectively mainstreaming gender no longer means just making sure women are involved in development, or that pro-gender development programs look to the roots of power and oppression. Rather, effective gender mainstreaming incorporates the wisdom, participation, and opinions of women as well as men, and ensures that these perspectives are integrated in all stages of all development programs, and in all development activities (Walby, 2005;Davids et al, 2013). Comprehensive women, gender, and development policies must not only move beyond "ticking boxes and numbers to changing attitudes and contexts," but also to maintaining that perspective throughout all programming, not just women specific activities (Bennett, 2005). It also means being mindful of all development activities and their implications in relationships between men and women.
With regards to gender strategies, Daly (2005) suggests that there are three different types of gender mainstreaming which come about as a result of different contexts and implementation strategies.
1. In its best iteration, gender mainstreaming is fully integrated, meaning that gendered perspectives are maintained throughout an entire project. Gender equality is not the burden of a few "gender experts" but is instead the responsibility of most if not all actors involved, and is embedded across all institutions.
2. "Mainstreaming light," or the middle ground of strategies, the responsibility of gender has been spread out and involves different organizations, departments, and ministries, but is still not a universal duty. There are still "gender specialists," and those who feel no obligation to work towards gender equity, since it is not in their job description.
3. In its most fragmented form, gender mainstreaming strategies are confined to certain policies, or specific programs within any given domain. Pieces of programs, activities, and policies involve gender equity, but there is no universality or master framework. Here, mainstreaming is usually new, and lacks breadth and depth.
Note that here we present three different results of gender mainstreaming, though results are varied and can be considered on a spectrum between fully fragmented and fully integrated. Like all aspects of development theory, critiques of gender mainstreaming strategies began almost immediately following their introduction as a concept. Opponents of the gender mainstreaming strategies point out that programs that focus on championing gender in order to stop things like poverty or environmental degradation are "marketizing" women. While trying to find a way to empower women and integrate gender into programming, projects end up theorizing and implementing gender solutions in a way that can be mapped as economic progress or environmental sustainability. (Porter and Judd, 1999;Walby, 2005;Leach, 2007;Eerdewuk and Davids, 2014).
Regarding gender mainstreaming strategies relating to environmental management, critics argue that in practice, strategies end up relying on a gender that is already generally a prime care-taker in the home, and in many instances a gender that has already been mainstreamed into income generating activities by other neoliberal minded development activities (Matsue et al, 2014, Bennet, 2005. Critiques of both GAD and gender mainstreaming can be found in figure 8 below. Additionally, many programs added these economic and environmental responsibilities to the to do list of an already marginalized group of people, whether they had the resources and capacity to deal with that responsibility or not (Leach, 2007;Walby, 2005;Davids et al, 2013;Eerdewijk and Davids, 2014). With these critiques came new ideas of gender and development.

Gender Mainstreaming in Ghana and in Fisheries
The women in Ghana have a vibrant history of political participation (Cornwall, 2005). 'Women's Movements' specifically gained momentum in the early 1990s leading to the addition of women's rights to the Ghanaian Constitution in 1992.
In 2000, after two female bodies were found in the streets of Accra in less than a year, protests and women's activists again brought attention to the national crisis of the Due to the general global misconception that men fish, and women process fish, the substantial role of women in fisheries has until very recently been overlooked (Bennet, 2004;Britwum, 2009;Harper et al, 2012;Lentisco and Alfonso, 2012;Asiedu et al, 2013;Torell et al, 2015). As a result of this, fisheries management programs of the past failed to include women in their definitions of fisheries stakeholders, and thus have failed to engage women in fisheries management (Bennet, 2004;Britwum, 2009;Harper et al, 2012;Torell et al, 2015). This exclusion of women and gender analyses from fisheries research has impeded a full understanding of fisheries ecological systems, as well as the links between ecology and society (Klieber et al, 2015). Gender mainstreaming strategies have only recently started to be implemented in the Ghanaian small-scale fisheries sector, and in fisheries governance development projects.

SFMP's Gender Mainstreaming Strategy Definitions
Gender: The term gender refers to culturally based expectations of the roles and behaviors of men and women. The term distinguishes the socially constructed from the biologically determined aspects of being male and female. Unlike the biology of sex, gender roles and behaviors, and the relations between women and men (gender relations) can change over time, even if aspects of these roles originated in the biological differences between sexes. Gender Analysis: Is an analytic social science tool that is used to identify, understand, and explain gaps between males and females that exist in households, communities, and countries, and the relevance of gender norms and power relations in a specific context. Gender needs assessment: is defined as the identification and analysis of the needs of men and women and the impact an intervention is likely to and/has on the men and women. Gender mainstreaming: Is defined as the process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies or program, in all areas and at all levels. It is a strategy for making women's as well as men's concerns and experiences an integral dimension of the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programs in all political, economic and societal spheres so that women and men benefit equally and inequality is not perpetuated. The ultimate goal of gender mainstreaming is to achieve gender equality. Gender lens: is a focus on gender differences and identification of gender gaps which require attention. MoFAD, 2016).

FIGURE 10 SFMP GENDER DEFINITIONS
Women are believed to represent 47% of the fisheries workforce in developing countries (Pomeroy and Andrew, 2001). In Ghana this figure holds true, as women account for nearly half of the fisheries work force . Fishermen are the ones going to sea to catch fresh fish, and women do process the majority of fish that is caught. However, as seen in Table 2 below, this simplification of roles undermines the true and more complicated division of labor. Aside from going to sea to fish, women are engaged in every single step of the fisheries value chain. They are especially well represented in the post-harvest sector. In addition to processing, women also engage in the fisheries sector by investing in canoes and other fishing equipment. Some women also finance fishing trips and fishing equipment maintenance, and some give loans to husbands and other fishermen . Many women also extract fish protein by gleaning estuarine areas for shellfish and mollusks. The income generated through women's production, transformation, and marketing of fish is vital for supporting the entire fishing industry (Britwum, 2009). "The role of women in the fishing industry is embedded in the culture of their communities through the structuring of their tasks and norms for accessing resources.
In these communities, the mode of reckoning descent underscores inheritance of office and property. As matrilineal societies, the Fante coastal communities reckon descent through female ancestors who provide the blood link that binds families." Each fishing community in Ghana has a venerable tradition of maintaining a chief fisherman, and a chief fishmonger/processor, or konkohema. Where the chief fisher holds authority over most of the local effects of programming like WID, WAD, GAD, WED, and gender mainstreaming 'light.' The following chapter will outline research conducted in 2018 on USAID/Ghana Sustainable Fisheries Management Project (SFMP), specifically the impacts of SFMP's gender mainstreaming strategy on the women of Ghana's small scale, artisanal fisheries sector. After defining the methodologies used in the study, the chapter will further contextualize small-scale fisheries, gender, and development in Ghana. By examining in detail, the context within which SFMP sits, this paper will then be able to more fully explore the field data collected from interviews with Ghanaian fishers, processors, members of fisher and processor associations, employees of NGOs, and members of the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development. Chapter Four will then analyze the results of the contextual analysis and field data collection, and Chapter Five will end this paper discussing recommendations and prescriptions for SFMP, as well as future fisheries development programs.

PROJECT'S GENDER MAINSTREAMING STRATEGY
The Sustainable Fisheries Management Project's primary goal is to create a more sustainable artisanal fishery in Ghana, in order to increase food security within the nation. One of SFMP's strategies within this fisheries-based project was to implement a gender mainstreaming strategy in order to empower previously First, the writing of SFMP's Gender Mainstreaming Impact Assessment in 2018 will be discussed in order to understand the motivations behind the creation of the present study. Next, the methodologies used in this document will be explained, followed by a presentation of the results. The results will be presented through a contextual analysis of recent history of the US government's involvement in Ghanaian The impact assessment included research questions 1, 2 and 3, and focused primarily on whether or not project actions led more women to be involved in fisheries management, if there had been any behavior change in fisheries activities to impact gender roles, whether or not women's role in the fisheries value chain had improved, and if there has been a change in perception regarding women's involvement in 4 The materials presented in chapters 3 and 4 relating to research questions 1-3 have been published as an SFMP report which can be found : https://www.crc.uri.edu/download/GH2014_GEN025_CRC_FIN508.pdf fisheries management (Gender Impact Assessment Workplan, 2018). While the impact assessment was able to critique and present various strategies for creating more intersectionality moving forward, the document you are currently reading is able to take a much deeper, more specifically critical perspective, and present its findings in a tone more applicable to a wider audience. This can be seen by the addition of research question 4, and in the perspectives outlined in the first chapter of this work which help center the discussion and pique the interest of more people than an acronym laden technical report. Additionally, the transnational feminist lens developed in the second chapter of this document allows for a much deeper and layered critical understanding of the impacts of SFMP's gender mainstreaming strategy. In order to create a more holistic perspective of the Ghanaian fisheries sector both the impact assessment and this study looked outside of readily available quantitative and disaggregated data. Guided by both transnational feminist and international developmental literatures, both studies were constructed in order to counter the narrowing effects of telling someone else's story without a full context. To be sure the studies were designed in a way that was relevant beyond a single reference point, the case study made an effort to be geographically representative of the Ghanaian coast. Figure 1 shows the different locations of field data collection.

Methods
Additionally, both methodologies were constructed in the hopes of moving beyond the limitations in developmental evaluations associated contextual references, can be seen in Table 1 below. The methodologies in this study were designed to provide context that could not otherwise be gleaned from other SFMP quarterly or yearly reports, or other impact assessments/monitoring and evaluation techniques previously carried out by SFMP and other associated NGOs. While statistical reports in technical papers are useful (they should not be taken as wholly representative of a project's impacts. An example the kind of information, which can prove restrictive if not paired with detailed qualitative analysis, can be found in Table 3 below.

Contextual Analysis
The contextual analysis used in this document was created in order to add more specific historical, social, and ecological context to the introductory and literature review sections, presented in Chapters One and Two of this work. It uses both peer reviewed articles, USAID funded technical papers, NGO publications, and SFMP publications such as annual and quarterly reports. These documents were read from a lens critical of ecofeminism, and presented in order to provide a fuller temporal and technical background to the reader. By compiling different information sources, this analysis will help conceptualize Ghanaian fisheries and recent international fisheries development programs in Ghana. Below you will find a table indicating the various types of materials used to create a contextual analysis.

Field Data Collection
Qualitative data was collected via semi-structured interviews with key informants and focus group guided discussions, which are summarized in Table 3 below. Key informant participants were chosen such that each organization involved with SFMP was equally represented in the study. Focus group participants selfselected after partner organizations in each of SFMP's six key communities sent out  Table 3 demonstrates, individual interviews took place with members of SFMP's partner organizations. These organizations can be broken up into two different categories implementing partners and client organizations and individuals, s seen in Figure 11.  While all of these organizations have been the beneficiaries of some capacity development through SFMP, partner organizations work with the program on an institutional level to develop and implement activities, while client organizations are beneficiaries of SFMP activities. Individuals included members of fishing communities that have participated in trainings, meetings, or business development service opportunities and other events of SFMP but may not be employees of the specific associations mentioned above.

Key Informant Interviews
As recommended by Galleta and Cross (2013) the assessment team began each interaction with a statement of purpose, and an expression of gratitude for the participants' involvement. The informants included employees of agriculture, fisheries, and gender focused NGOs, SFMP team members, employees of fish processor and fisher Associations, and members of the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development (MoFAD). They are "key" in that they are critical members of our partner organizations who are "informed" about SFMP activities, and the impacts they have had in organizations and on the ground. The early part of the interview was used for broad open-ended questions that aimed to elicit a central story and data the team could not anticipate in advance. The middle segment of the interview shifted to more specific questions related to SFMP's gender mainstreaming strategy, concluding with more theoretical questions and considerations working towards a sense of "wrapping up." The research team crafted unique semi-structured "questionnaires" for each organization, and ask members the question sets designed for their employers. These question sets can be found in Appendix A. While the questions differ by organization, much of their content is uniform across all questionnaires. The variations in questions pertain only to the differences in SFMP based activities for each organization.
Each key informant was introduced to the interviewer and made aware that the interview would remain anonymous, and was not an evaluation of their workplace or their work. They were then told that the research team was instead looking to discover the true impacts of SFMP's gender mainstreaming strategy on the ground. They were then asked "What does gender mainstreaming mean to you?" After each key informant was allowed to create their own personal definition of gender mainstreaming, the following quote was presented as SFMP's definition, and then read aloud: "Gender Mainstreaming is a globally accepted strategy for promoting gender equality. Mainstreaming is not an end in itself but a strategy, an approach, a means to achieve the goal of gender equality. Mainstreaming involves ensuring that gender perspectives and attention to the goal of gender equality are central to all activities -policy development, research, advocacy/ dialogue, legislation, resource allocation, and planning, implementation and monitoring of programs and projects." (UN Women, 2018) This quote helped focus the interviews, and created a working definition of gender mainstreaming. For most of the partners interviewed, unless the key informant was clearly uncomfortable with this line of questioning, the next question was "What does empowerment mean to you?" Both of these questions helped coax definitions of highly ubiquitous though often opaque technical terms. Broad open-ended questions like these helps elicit a central story and information the research team could not anticipate in advance. The middle segment of the interview shifted to questions specific to SFMP activities related to the key informant, concluding with more theoretical questions and considerations working towards a sense of "wrapping up." Again, these question sets can be found in Appendix A.

Focus Groups
Focus group discussions were organized and led by members of Hen Mpoano, one of SFMP's implementing partners, and held with fishers and fish processors.
Community members were gathered by seeking women, and in half of the groups men, who had previously participated in an SFMP activity. Participants were informed that their responses would remain anonymous, and that though the repercussions of the study might not be felt immediately, or by their community, they would be felt by future fishers and processors. Focus groups had a similar structure to the key informant interviews, though they were conducted in local dialects and started with a prayer. They were necessary because they allowed the beneficiaries speak freely about how SFMP activities related to the project's gender mainstreaming strategy impacted themselves and their communities.
Focus groups discussions were held in Axim, Elmina, Moree, Shama, Ankobra, and with members of the Densu Delta Community, as represented buy

Results
Below you will find results from both a contextual analysis and field data collection regarding SFMP's Gender Mainstreaming Strategy.

Contextual Analysis
This contextual analysis will examine the relevant information related to the Ghanaian fisheries sector, USAID's current role in the Ghanaian fisheries sector, specific information about SFMP as a whole, SFMP and gender, and SFMP's gender mainstreaming strategy.

GHANAIAN FISHERIES SECTOR
As stated in Chapter One, this paper will focus on artisanal or canoe fishing in Ghana, rather than industrial deep sea or inshore fishing. This fishing industry dates back to the fifteenth century, and is now characterized by "dugout canoes propelled by outboard motors," (Britwum, 2009). Of particular importance to this sector is the small pelagic fish species, sardinella, in the US known as a Spanish sardine (FAO, 2019).
These small pelagic fish represent over 50% of Ghana's protein needs, as seen in Figure 13 below.  The CRC has managed various international projects as a way means to In order to rectify this deficiency of women's voices in fisheries decisionmaking, in 2014 CRC employees decided to create a gender mainstreaming strategy.
As described in Chapter 2, gender mainstreaming means making sure gender perspectives are considered while planning, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating a project.

THE SUSTAINABLE FISHERIES MANAGEMENT PROJECT
The Sustainable Fisheries Management Project is situated within USAID's food security programming. The main goal of the program is to stop the collapse of Ghana's fish stocks important to local food security. By using a nested system of governance, SFMP hopes to construct a balance of powers between local, state, and federal management agencies, and a balance of economic and social benefits between the various fisheries stakeholders. SFMP's strategy for achieving this is to make sure all stakeholders, both men and women, community members and elected leaders, scientists and policy makers, are engaged in the decision-making process. Though SFMP was created as a holistic follow on to the specific capacities mentioned above, it was also meant to have a much more focused gendered lens than the previous project.
Below is a list of Intermediary Results (IR) as translated into "Project Themes" on an infographic on the following page.  A gender analysis is an analytic, social science tool that is used in international development projects to identify, understand, and explain gaps between males and females that exist in households, communities, and countries, and the relevance of "The needs of the fishing communities span a broad range of social and economic aspects; however, the focus of the project restricts this assessment to the needs of men and women engaged in fishing and fish processing as an economic activity. The interest of the assessment is on "practical needs,' which, when fulfilled, will assist both men and women to better carry out their existing roles, ease drudgery, and address concerns of inequalities in living conditions (Deare, 2004)." Both the gender analysis and the gender needs assessment identified opportunities to empower women by decreasing the drudgeries of fish processing, increasing women's financial efficiencies, and enabling women to play more active roles in fisheries management. These documents formed the basis for SFMP's gender mainstreaming strategy and subsequent implementation of gender mainstreaming activities. The gender mainstreaming strategy reads: "Gender mainstreaming provides women a chance to take up their position in society and to recognize and avail opportunities to generate wealth: thus, it is also a crucial component in alleviating poverty, achieving greater food and nutrition security, and enabling good governance and sustainable development of fisheries resources. Political will and the development of capacity to put mainstreaming into practice at all steps of the process is essential to achieve responsible fisheries practices and management… …The main objective of the gender strategy is to facilitate mainstreaming of gender into all SFMP implementing activities. It seeks to promote a coherent and sustained approach of integrating the needs and concerns of men, women, boys and girls engaged directly or indirectly in the fisheries sector for equitable development in relation to Sustainable Fisheries Management through gender sensitive data gathering, participation and implementation and monitoring and evaluation processes of the project. This will ensure: • Involvement of all stakeholders in decision making • Improve food security and food access • Sustainable fisheries resource management" -Okeyre Nyako et al, 2015a As an example of gender mainstreaming activities, in order to mobilize women's voices for improved fisheries management, SFMP has provided ongoing training to women leaders in fishing communities. In addition to directly training women to participate, SFMP has also provided training-of-trainer's workshops on gender leadership and conflict management to multiply efforts to reach more women.   Figure 17 visually represents the data gleaned from SFMP's training database, relating to the cumulative number of participants in certain SFMP events, segregated by gender (sex-disaggregate data). It should be noted that the dataset may be missing certain events, is only representative of the first three years of the project, and is not as comprehensive a look at SFMP gender-based activities as the information in Table 5 above. However, it is worth taking a look at. Figure 17 below shows the cumulative number of men (blue) and women (pink) that attended 244 events held by SFMP in the first three years of the project (CRC, 2018a). A total of 9,942 people participated in the events, 6,177, or 62% of whom were women.  These numbers could represent a major increase in women involved in science and policy from years prior, however they are not entirely representative of all SFMP activities, and there is no baseline data.  (Cinner et al. 2009). In order to effectively decrease total fish catch and increase fish biomass, SFMP works to change the behavior of people involved in the fisheries sector. This means changing the supply and demand for fish, and it involves fishers, processors, traders, policy makers, and consumers.
In the simplest terms SFMP's Theory of Change as it relates to gender mainstreaming suggests that SFMP should work to empower women and their associations, and change processing and business practices in order to reduce illegal fishing and increase support for fisheries management measures to reduce fishing effort. At the same time, SFMP's theory of change operates under the idea that creating value addition to fish through improved processing techniques is a means to improved economic wellbeing and livelihoods of women processors. More broadly, SFMP's theory of change and gender mainstreaming strategy rests on the belief that that engaging women in the fisheries sector is an important aspect of building powerful constituencies that demand a well-managed fisheries sector.
SFMP's theory of change believes the root of this engagement lies in stakeholders knowing their roles, or bringing attention to the large, but invisible role that women play in the Ghanaian fisheries sector (Bennett, 2005). The next step in the theory of change is to have both men and women realize that as key members of the sector, women are also key decision makers. As such, SFMP aimed to give women the tools they need to become leaders advocating for fishery management reforms.
Concurrent to all of this support and capacity development, SFMP's theory of change implies that the economic well-being of fish processors is also important to the ecological goals of more sustainable fisheries.
As stated by Rogers, 1995 "Getting a new idea adopted, even when it has obvious advantages, is often very difficult." Changing an individual's behavior so that they will adopt a new technology or idea is a highly complex action for a person, individuals have adopted an innovation so that the innovation's further rate of adoption becomes self-sustaining" (Rogers, 1995).
In order to understand how to reach critical mass, research shows that in any group, you can categorize potential adapters of an innovation (better managed fisheries) into innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards.
These groups are represented in Figure 18. By reaching the early majority, it will be easier for new innovations to proliferate and endure, than if only innovators are reached. Thus, one way to gauge the impact of SFMP's gender mainstreaming strategy is to look at what percentage of the sector the project has not only reached, but has made to change their behavior.
As previously stated, one of the ways SFMP intends to reach a critical mass of Ghanaians demanding a better managed fishery is to reach out to the women in the sector. SFMP developed its gender mainstreaming strategy to increase equity as well as efficacy. The project's theory of change indicates that adding women's voices to the mass of stakeholders demanding change will lead to a timelier, more enduring fisheries management system, where good management practices are more effectively diffused. The idea of giving women a voice in natural resource management is not new, though it is quite contentious.

Field Data
Below you will find the results of the key informant and focus group interviews conducted in June of 2018. The results were collected in order to address the following guiding questions: The data will be displayed in the following manner. First, the impacts of SFMP's gender mainstreaming on Ghanaian fish processors in artisanal fisheries communities will be presented, followed by a brief presentation of the impacts of the strategy on SFMP client and partner organizations, as well as the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture. Next, data relating to the level at which gender has been mainstreamed within the Ghanaian fisheries sector will be introduced.
Finally, the study will present results from interviews that demonstrate factors relating to SFMP that have affected the current level of gender mainstreaming in Ghana, and women's equity at the grassroots, organizational, and governmental levels.

PROJECT IMPACTS
This section will address the first guiding question of this study: 1. At the grassroots, organizational, and governmental scales, what have been the impacts of SFMP's gender mainstreaming strategy?

What does gender mainstreaming mean to you?
The majority of the members of the focus groups were women, and by merely including them in an activity it became gendered. The women participants considered any SFMP training they had ever been to as a "gender training," since they had been invited. It was the mere inclusion that made an activity a gender training. For example, in most of the focus groups even trainings on fire safety were added to the discussions on gender trainings.
The key informant interviews showed that members of organizations that act as implementing partners spoke more about project-supported activities involved in gender mainstreaming while client organizations spoke more about gender mainstreaming in the Ghanaian culture, writ large. Though not all implementing partners tied gender mainstreaming to the activities of their organization, many were able to speak to their employer's gender mainstreaming strategy. On the other hand, members of client organizations were less likely to speak to the strategic aspect of gender mainstreaming from a programmatic perspective. Instead they spoke about broader themes of understanding gender roles, and reducing disparities. Everyone interviewed attributed to SFMP, and therefore SFMP's gender mainstreaming strategy, the "discovery" that women were involved in the fisheries sector in Ghana. This is very much in line with the literature on fisheries worldwide, where women generally remain invisible actors. The assessment found that the people involved in SFMP were not only made aware that women participated in the fisheries sector, but that women had the potential to be powerful change agents.
In the following section we will differentiate between SFMP's gender mainstreaming strategy's impacts on fishers and fish processors, and on implementing partners and client organizations. Fish processors will be referred to as 'beneficiaries,' while impacts of SFMP's gender mainstreaming strategy on both client organizations, and partner organizations will be discussed in the section entitled 'organizations.'

Beneficiaries
What is empowerment? Not only is "women's empowerment" one of the four main goals of SFMP's gender strategy and results chain (see Figure 1), the term is often mentioned in SFMP publications and trainings, and it was expected to come up during the assessment (Torell et al, 2016). Quotations from beneficiaries illustrate the effects of SFMP on beneficiaries (see Table 7). In the table, impacts are broken up into different aspects of empowerment as defined by the key informants; knowledge, confidence, leadership and advocacy. While confidence, leadership, knowledge, and advocacy are intertwined facets of the broader idea of empowerment, they were themes teased from an analysis of focus group discussion notes. "Before, when you sent a woman to a big hotel to talk to ministers, they would not talk. Now, even if they don't speak English, women are empowered to speak and be translated and be leaders. They express themselves at levels we/they never thought" "Our women go to meetings with the Fisheries Commission and the minister. They talk about "say no to bad fish," they were putting pressure… the people we train talk to others. It's a chain..." Advocacy "Through the project, some women have met personally with the minister of fisheries and aquaculture development for discussions on fisheries management related issues." "They (the women) are now bold. They don't feel shy, instead they talk, are interactive, bring out ideas. They used to just listen, didn't want to answer questions. Now they are even letting other people know 'don't do this' [IUU]. They are truly empowered." "Women are now creating awareness. They are blowing the whistle. People listen."

Knowledge
During the focus group discussions women pieced together a story of their own significance as women, as processors, as consequential members of the fishing sector, and to society, through the new information they learned as a result of SFMP gender activities. This story is contextualized in Table 8, which uses only data gathered about women. This is due to the fact that male members of the focus group discussions had not received as many trainings as the women and due to the gendered focus of this study. The table represents information the women participants of the focus group discussions remember having learned from SFMP gendered activities. it shows that the responses were fairly homogenous across the different communities, especially in relation to fish handling and economics (financial literacy). Not everyone interviewed was actively implementing these skills or knowledge, although most people agreed that they perceived changes in women's ability to discuss fisheries management, handle fish more hygienically, and be more prudent with money. Fishers and fish processors also stated that they more fully understood why a closed season was important, but many expressed that they were not ready for it.
Many women brought up how some fish processors had participated in study tours to Philippines and Senegal. Not only was this an amazing experience for the women who participated in the trips, but female interviewees had heard of their travels and seemed proud that their sister processors had been chosen for the experience. It was also encouraging to hear people, in different communities, say that they 7  understood the need to see at least 30% of participation in fisheries management be women.

Confidence
Confidence building seems to be one of the largest impacts SFMP has had on its female beneficiaries, despite it never being explicitly stated as part of an interviewee's definition of empowerment, or as a main effect of the SFMP project. For example, during a focus group meeting in Axim, the participants said that they now understand that the views of women are important in fisheries management. Men now recognize women in fisheries meetings, and many feel that women have been marginalized in fisheries for too long. In Elmina, focus group participants said that women are now more active in discussion issues related to fisheries management.
In a recent, and as of yet unpublished, study of members of Ghanaian fish processing associations (Beran 2017), 87% of those surveyed stated that they were comfortable speaking at fish processors association meetings (primarily attended by other processors), and 81% stated that they feel as though they have influence over other people's fishing behaviors. The main reason people were not comfortable speaking at meetings was reported as shyness. This goes to show the importance of confidence in general, and the degree to which the beneficiaries of SFMP's partner organizations now feel they have the confidence to be heard. While there is no baseline information for this data, multiple accounts from members of the government, partner organizations, and the fishers and fish processors indicate that SFMP's activities have been the change in confidence.
Additionally, due to changing perceptions of fishers, fish processors, and people working in fisheries management along the coast and the resulting confidence, partner organizations and the women interviewed explained that they feel more capable of speaking at meetings where men are present. After SFMP trainings on concepts such as communication, women reported they are more likely to feel confident enough to stand before a man and express themselves. Many women said they now believed in themselves to the point that, like others they now hear about, they can even go to an impromptu radio event or a meeting with the minister and communicate their thoughts. For example, one woman explained that she had the confidence to speak to a group of dignitaries in her local language, and with the aid of a translator was heard and understood by all. These kinds of anecdotes were numerous and repeated by women all along the coast.

Leadership
Focus group participants recalled trainings on leadership, and were quick to recite things they learned about negotiations and compromise, how to support innovation, managing conflicts peacefully, and teamwork techniques. They also stated that they learned how to take all of this information and communicate their messages accurately to the public and the government. This activism has been met in some instances with negative side-effects. Fish processors made it clear that this is a very formidable task, since their stances go directly against those of their fisher husbands. Additionally, there are times when deciding to "say no to bad fish" means fishers won't allow processors to buy any fish.
This can have a detrimental effect on households and societal relationships and will be discussed later in this paper.

Organizations
This section will discuss the impacts the SFMP Gender Mainstreaming Strategy has had on its implementing partners and client organizations. These organizations include DAA, CEWIFIA, SNV, SSG, NAFPTA, DOPA, GNCFC, Hen Mpoano, FON, Daasgift, the Fisheries Commission, and UCC. In Table 5 you will find quotes from the employees of partner organizations that relate to these effects. In the table, impacts are broken up into 3 different aspects of organizational improvement; technical knowledge, logistics, and leadership. "There's not as much fish as before because of illegal practices -We've learned the need for a closed season in August because of researchers. When eggs are with the fish. Some years back we didn't know this. But now we know how to get our stock back. The August closing season will increase fish stocks." Logistics "President, funding, secretary in place-leads to sustainability. By the time the project ends we will have achieved that." "[SFMP trained organizations to] identify yourself at all levels -national, regional, local. Now we can go to a place and just call a person. Now we know each other." Leadership "On the closed season committee, women's associations and women were represented. This is very laudable. Even in a normal commission, they never had a woman." "Formerly women have no voice. Now every policy meeting, they invite me. In every fishing decision, a women organization is there. They are involved in meetings." While SFMP's theme 5 is Gender and theme 7 is Organizational Capacity Development, these results are both cross-cutting themes of the project at large.
Though it was "never a part of the gender strategy" SFMP's organizational capacity program "happened to focus on women's organizations," (implementing partners) such as CEWIFIA and DAA, as stated by a member of the SFMP Rhode Island Office.
In this instance, the gendered lens grew outside the "gender theme" to encompass the organizational capacity development theme. The gender mainstreaming literature would call this inadvertent equitable development of theme 7 "fully integrated mainstreaming."

Technical knowledge
Another simple way SFMP's gender mainstreaming strategy has impacted its female based partner organizations is through trainings that increase their employees' technical knowledge. Women's organizations were given the skills needed to not only organize, identify, and mobilize themselves, but to understand why this is necessary.

Logistics
Beyond gender mainstreaming and technical trainings, part of SFMP's strategy for organizational capacity development was to implement an Organizational Capacity Assessment (OCA) for many of its partner organizations (both implementing partners and client organizations). During key informants' interviews with members of these organizations, the women interviewed maintained that they were honored and appreciative of "the OCA." Everyone interviewed who had participated in the evaluation stated that the OCA helped teach the power of elections for leadership positions. OCA participants also stated that the assessment helped them realize the value of taking time to strategize for each year, and the importance of creating a management plan for each new project.
As stated by a member of an implementing partner organization "All we have learned has been laudable. The knowledge SFMP has imparted managerially has been enough to have a great impact on our work. We are very grateful." In addition to managerial skills, all the organizations assessed, not just those who had been involved in an OCA, reported being much savvier to financial management as a result of SFMP EQUITY This section will present field data that addresses how SFMP related programming has affected women's equity. Many people stated they believed women were being targeted for fisheries knowledge and skills interventions because it is the responsibility of the woman to either manage the fisheries or provide for the family, not because they are the more disadvantaged gender.

Including men:
One theme that came up during the assessment was putting the blame of overfishing on women. This was a pattern voiced during focus groups and with client organizations. -employee of partner organization, in relation to SFMP's gender mainstreaming programming Focus group participants often stated that women were the target for SFMP's livelihood and business acumen because it is up to the women to provide for the family.
One employee of a client organization stated: "In Ghana, men don't give chop-money 9 to women. Everything depends on women. School fees, food, providing children with high education." A member of a partner organization said: 9 Chop Money -In West Africa, this refers to money used for the daily provision of food and then they work, and then they go home and they have to do everything… women at home must take care of their children." -processor and member of client organization "Women carry a bit more weight than the men"in relation to who is causing the current fisheries crises, member of client organization

Densu Oyster Pickers Association
The Densu Delta estuary is a microcosm of the degradation of Ghana's marine environment as a whole and it is arguable that SFMP's strategy of strengthening the Densu Oyster Pickers Association (DOPA) is a microcosm of the project as a whole. Like many artisanal shellfisheries in the global south, oyster harvesting in the Densu Delta is a vocation traditionally held by women. The labor of women oyster pickers in this region has been invisible, underestimated, or not enumerated at all (Bennett, 2004;Ogden, 2017). Perhaps as a result of this global omission, working with the shellfish harvesters of the Densu Delta was not initially on SFMP's agenda.
Since the beginning of SFMP, mangroves were ecosystems targeted for integrated (subnational) management plans (CRC, 2015). However, the initial efforts focused on spatial planning to ensure sustainable wood supply chains, fish nurseries, and sound local policies, as opposed to the current focus on oysters, habitat co-management, and primarily female harvesters.
SFMP's work with the Densu Delta oyster pickers (DOPA) has been very successful. After merely one year of support from SFMP, members of DOPA agreed to close their oyster grounds to harvesting for five months in order to allow for a rebound in oyster populations. This decision was made without the support of the project or its partners. It is very positive that the community created its own closed season for oysters. One reason why the significant and swift progress is that the Densu estuary stakeholders is a relatively small and cohesive groupespecially when compared with the Ghanaian fisheries sector at large. This makes critical mass and consensus easier to reach. However, regardless of the number of stakeholders, the fundamentals of SFMP's strategy for working with DOPA have merit and are worth noting as an example of successful development/aid planning.

Success
The gender assessment team explored why DOPA was able to successfully, promptly, and harmoniously implement a closed season. One reason was that following SFMP's gender mainstreaming strategy, the women of DOPA were empowered through increased scientific knowledge, confidence, leadership, and abilities to advocate. Much of this empowerment can be traced back to certain astute decisions made about extension work with the Densu communities.
First, after listening to the needs of the communities, there was very limited observable "foreign" involvement with DOPA. This definitely had an impact on the women's confidence, perceived leadership, and advocacy abilities. As stated by a member of the team working with DOPA: "There was this misconception 'ooh, foreigners are coming to take our land.'

So they told us, 'let us do this ourselves.' Eventually they realized that the [foreigners]
wanted to help them. Though I think DOPA's success came from everything being very participatory, because they didn't see the foreigners much. It also calmed their nerves." Second, extension agents working with the community integrated themselves whenever they could. When asked whether or not they were seen as outsiders, one extension agent who had worked very closely with DOPA stated: After interviewing different extension agents working with SFMP, those working with DOPA were the only ones to speak to the importance of integration.
They were also the only ones to speak to the importance of incorporating adult literacy workshop strategies into their trainings. This is why the curriculum for oyster ecology and biology was created specifically for the DOPA community. Time was taken before teaching began to meet with the women, and ask them questions. This meant that the information was taught at the women's level at the same time as it was presented in a way that made it interesting. As stated by a DOPA extension agent:  temperature, turbidity, and ph. "We are scientists" the ladies gleefully proclaimed after recording their last number. Not just fully understanding the science, but owning the data, or at least playing a part in its collection, seems to have had a profound effect on the data collectors, members of the Densu Community, and the mangroves themselves.
SFMP's work with DOPA engaged a broad array of oyster pickers, including regular women, youth, and traditional leaders. By engaging youth and other nonleaders, who are often overlooked, the Densu Oyster Picker's Association was able to reach critical mass of support for fisheries management. As a result, the majority of the shellfishery's stakeholders are not only asking for, but passionately demanding, a better managed fishery.

Looking Forward
While the closed season has contributed to increasing oyster populations and the well-being of the harvesters, there is always room for improvement. The two main causes of concern identified in during the assessment involve men and time. Time is a simple constraint to explain, though tricky to address. During focus group interviews, the oyster pickers explained that they are concerned about the approaching end date of SFMP and hence, the end to SFMP's financial support to their data collection. One challenge is that once the data collection ends, the most visible part of the management efforts will no longer be there. There is a risk that the leadership roles of the mostly young women data collectors would dissipate.
Another area for concern is about benefit capture. Though DOPA support did include a few men, it focused on strengthening the livelihoods of the young and female oyster pickers, who are among the poorest in their community. The project support included not only fisheries management, but strengthening post-harvest processing, access to microfinance, and business management. There are examples from other parts of the world (e.g. Nicaragua) that indicate that when the profitability of oyster harvesting increases, there is a risk that more affluent community members (often men) will enter into oyster harvesting. This will increase the pressure on the oyster resourcesand it could push the previous harvesters of the fishery. Plans to mitigate this can be found in the Densu Management Plan, which calls for exclusive rights be granted to the association, as referenced in Appendix B (Fisheries Commission, 2018).

CHAPTER 4 -DISCUSSING GENDER MAINSTREAMING LIGHT AND EQUITY
"Every project has a gender officer but everybody else should be a gender deputy." -Partner Organization Employee SFMP's primary goal is to create a more sustainable artisanal fishery in Ghana, in order to increase food security within the nation. One of SFMP's strategies within this fisheries-based project was to implement a gender mainstreaming strategy to empower previously overlooked women stakeholders. The study described in this chapter was done in conjunction with SFMP organizers, in order to address the SFMP represents contemporary best practices for gender in development aid, as can be seen in the contextual analysis' comparison between SFMP's gender mainstreaming strategy and S USAID's 2017 Guide to Implementing Gender in Improvement (Faramand et al, 2017).
Results from the gender impact assessment found that the SFMP has made great strides towards the food security based goals, addressing the need to include women in fisheries management decision-making processes, especially comparing the achievements in relation to the timeframe (3 years). However, though it is clear that the project has been successful in moving the needle on making the fisheries sector more gender equal, there is room for further improvement.
In the Ghanaian fisheries sector, gender mainstreaming, be it through the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development's official gender mainstreaming strategy, or within grassroots level programming, is neither fully integrated, nor entirely fragmented, but somewhere in-between. An example of this disconnection was found during interactions with local partner and government employees. While nobody questioned the need to assess the impacts of SFMPs gender mainstreaming strategy, those who were not "the gender specialist" within the organization would often question why they needed to be interviewed. One employee told the team that a key informant consultation with them would be a waste of time, and effectively refused to be interviewed.
This "mainstreaming light" can also be found when examining the categorization and organization of the project itself. Although gender is a cross-cutting theme, it is a separate 'intermediate result,' or theme within SFMP, and gender is to some extent regarded as a separate activity rather than something that is mainstreamed. Although gender became more mainstreamed in some activities, such as the Densu Oyster Pickers Association and organizational strengthening activities, the segregation of 'gender' in other areas has held the project back from implementing a fully integrated gender lens.
This chapter will discuss the results presented in Chapter Three. The results will be discussed in the following manner. First, the impacts of SFMP's gender mainstreaming on Ghanaian fish processors in artisanal fisheries communities will be discussed, followed by a brief analysis of the impacts of the strategy on SFMP client and partner organizations, as well as the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture. Next, data relating to the level at which gender has been mainstreamed within the Ghanaian fisheries sector will be discussed.
Finally, the study will discuss results from interviews that demonstrate factors relating to SFMP that have affected the current level of gender mainstreaming in Ghana, and women's equity at the grassroots, organizational, and governmental levels.
The following section will discuss results related to the first guiding question of this study: 1. At the grassroots, organizational, and governmental scales, what have been the impacts of SFMP's gender mainstreaming strategy?

Project Impacts
Hundreds of thousands of people are involved in the Ghanaian fisheries value chain; from the fishers to the processors to the consumers. SFMP's gender mainstreaming strategy has worked to include many processors in its activities and in the sector's decision making processes. However, while SFMP has succeeded in engaging many women processors, the project is only at the beginning of the diffusion of innovation process (Rogers, 1995).
One important accomplishment, presented in chapter 3, was the adoption of the Fisheries Sector's National Gender Mainstreaming Strategy. Implementing the national strategy as well as the SFMP gender mainstreaming strategy involved implementing gender mainstreaming trainings with a broad range of organizations.
The study indicates that these trainings resulted in a systemization of equity driven hiring techniques, more favorable ways of dealing with women processors, members of processors associations, and employees of partner organizations, and an increase in the capacity of female-led institutions. However, the fisheries sector has not yet reached the point where all actors and institutions involved in public policy take responsibility for gender equality. This will be discussed later in the chapter. a. DOPA is a relatively small and cohesive group, which meant that it was easier to reach a critical mass and consensus.
b. Another success factor was the participatory management and monitoring approach, which increased scientific knowledge, confidence, leadership, and the ability to advocate.
c. Finally, DOPA, through successful links to university and government field level officers, was able to work with passionate and engaging extension staff, whose energy and commitment rubbed off on the local stakeholders. norm, women's associations must continuously work towards "attracting new recruits" (Bretherton, 2003, Moghadam, 2005. The Ghanaian fisheries sector is not fully organized, and therefore includes large pools of potential "recruits." A study by Beran (2018) shows that while most fish processors in Ghana are members of an association, 33% of those surveyed were not members of a fisheries related group. Non-members stated that they did not participate as a result of lack of interest, time constraints (the result of household and reproductive responsibilities), poor health, distrust and disillusion with respect to high membership dues, and no access to loans. The SFMP project design is limited in its ability to address the needs of non-members and attract non-members to participate in group activities.
As stated in the context analysis, the need to attract all people, not just those in associations or those who are more likely to have the funds that allow them to adopt a new risky behavior, was established in the SFMP Gender Needs Assessment. The assessment stated "Women with little or no assets in the sector should be included in the associations where they can be heard. As a unified body, the women can serve as allies in fighting illegal fishing." Unfortunately, this aspect of the planning process was not implemented as expected. Instead, SFMP depended on pre-established processor association networks to engage potential sustainable fisheries advocates, and has thus been less successful in reaching a broader base.
Though improving fisheries management is a necessity, saving fish stocks must be done in a way that is cognizant of intersectional gender perspectives. In development projects in general, merely including women, or even empowering women through capacity building project activities can work. However, without fully engaging communities, be it through bringing in women from outside the organization, projects such as SFMP may be exacerbate the hardship of members of an already double or triple burdened gender. Instead, comprehensive development policies must move beyond inviting women to participate, collecting gender disaggregated data, and teaching women new skills to improve themselves and their environments. Development that is truly by and for women who have been marginalized in the global south must instead look to fundamentally different strategies (Porter and Judd,199). Current fisheries development practices of empowerment must shift focus from simply including women and teaching women new skills, to understanding and uprooting the true sources of their oppression. This shift will be discussed below.
The following section will discuss results relating to the second and third

Intersectionality
In order to more fully mainstream gender into the Ghanaian fisheries sector, gender and gender mainstreaming strategies must be addressed from a more intersectional perspective. Intersectionality is a framework that conceptualizes gender as only one component of social stratification of many, including class, age, creed, race, and religion (Carbado et al, 2013). Twenty years after coining the term, Kimberly Crenshaw states that "Intersectionality is a lens through which you can see where power comes and collides, where it interlocks and intersects," (CLS, 2019).
This is important to SFMP's gender mainstreaming strategy because merely seeking to include women overlooks the fact that power and oppression are not shared equally between all women. There is not just one way to be a woman, there is not just one homogenous experience of being woman. Instead, there are varying degrees of inequity and oppression, which should not be minimized or overlooked (Alcoff, 1991;Mohanty et al, 1991).
Results show that the women beneficiaries of SFMP's activities have been empowered to some extent. However, most focus group participants stressed the need for the project to reach out to people beyond the those already reached by SFMP activities. There are multiple reasons why stakeholder engagement has been limited, such as an over reliance on pre-established partner networks, and though there are no silver bullets, one way to engage more people is to practice intersectional gender mainstreaming.

Non-Dignitaries
It appears that although the networks are large, only some of the members get invited to SFMP workshops. Discussions with fishers, processors, and members of partner organizations found that it is usually the most distinguished members that are invited by partner and client organizations to trainings first, and only if there is room, others will be invited. This may stem from the incredibly important value and respect placed on elders and dignitaries in West Africa. Programs such as SFMP should strive to put systems in place that make sure the truly committed are invited to events, not just those distinguished either by status, class, age, or other notable connections.
However, this can be difficult when people know the participants will receive something, be it a new skill or something tangible like food, and deference must be paid to the higher ranked community members.

Traditional Leaders
SFMP's gender mainstreaming strategy focused on working with the relatively recent fish processing associations and the networks and connections they provide within communities. However, each fishing community in Ghana has a pre-established chief processor, or the konkohema. While this female representation is notable, the results of this study illustrate that currently, most people believe the konkohema represent "a queen on the ground, but not in true leadership." Though the current status of konkohema is seen as "lesser" in the chief's council, this group of women represents an influential population that has been somewhat overlooked by SFMP. This is not a new concept. The lack of non-dignitaries, traditional leaders, and youth in SFMP activities has limited the scope and impact of SFMP activities. This limitation has led to 'gender mainstreaming light' within the Ghanaian fisheries sector, and has led to an increased burden on the advocates SFMP programming has been able to reach.

Measured Progress, Equitable Change
Effective gender mainstreaming in environmental management is not just about making sure that a specific number of women are involved in a project, although ensuring that women are represented in meetings and workshops can be an important first step. This is because merely strategizing the inclusion of 'women' fails to truly address the varying degrees of oppression, and resulting sex disaggregated data generally fails to paint a true picture of what's truly going on. Another reason for this is the unequal burden that is created when gender strategies become tools for efficiently empowering women. Figure 10, from chapter 3 is presented again below, and represents how numbers can be misleading. It visually represents the data from SFMP's training database, showing that though women represent a majority of SFMP's project beneficiaries within the first three years of the project, this is not the full picture. There is no baseline statistic to show whether or not women were more or less represented in science and policy or management activities after gender mainstreaming strategies were implemented. However, women were targeted to engage in livelihoods activities that empowered women to be more financially responsible for their home and their businesses, and were definitely in the majority for those activities. while women are taking on the additional burdens in fisheries management and improving the post harvesting process, the responsibilities will be unbalanced.
Creating an equitable division of household responsibilities between women and men were not a goal of SFMP, or its gender mainstreaming strategies. However, these numbers illustrate that looking to gender disaggregate data to tell a story of participation gives an incomplete picture, in this instance especially when talking about empowerment.
One study, by psychologists Kim et al 2018, found that though teaching women they have the capacity to overcome struggles leads to more feelings of confidence and self-worth, those same teachings lead to feelings of blame for women who don't succeed. This in turn lead to more skepticism in broader initiatives that tackle things like bias. The so-called 'burden of empowerment' critique of genderbased development strategies clearly applies the SFMP "Humans don't like injustice, and when they cannot easily fix it, they often engage in mental gymnastics to make the injustice more palatable. Blaming victims for their suffering is a classic examplee.g., that person "must have done something" to deserve what's happened to them." - Kim et al, 2018 Similar to the burden of empowerment, results show that as men and women in the Ghanaian fisheries sector learn that women are a part of the process, they are starting to blame overfishing on women, and placing the burden of reform on this already marginalized gender. Many people stated they believed women were being targeted for fisheries knowledge and skills interventions because it is the responsibility of the woman to either manage the fisheries or provide for the family, not because they are the more disadvantaged gender. While these comments may have been expressed "tongue in cheek" and as a way to provoke the dialogue, it indicates that the gender mainstreaming efforts have made men think about women's role in fisheries.
Even if expressed mostly to provokesome fishermen, the true extractors of fish, may put the blame of the small pelagic stock crisis on women. By no longer remaining invisible, and instead stepping into a spotlight of advocacy, women have become targets. As a result of this they now bear the burden of advocacy, and in some minds, women also bear the burden of blame.
Future fisheries development projects should implement a more intersectional perspective, and must be sure that their gender analyses, needs assessments, and gender mainstreaming strategies address equity as well as equality. This twist on old ideas of gender mainstreaming could be very successful for future projects. Chapter 5 will now outline recommendations and prescriptions for future fisheries development projects moving forward.

CHAPTER 5 -RECCOMENDATIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT
USAID/Ghana's Sustainable Fisheries Management Project's primary goal is to create a more sustainable artisanal fishery in Ghana, in order to increase food security within the nation. One of SFMP's strategies within this fisheries-based project was to implement a gender mainstreaming strategy to empower previously overlooked women stakeholders. The idea being that empowering women economically and to advocate for change would result in a more sustainable fishery. At the grassroots, organizational, and governmental levels this strategy has resulted in 'mainstreaming light' rather than a fully integrated mainstreaming.
If completely successful, a mainstreaming approach creates an environment where "gender equality is not the burden of a few "gender experts" but is instead the responsibility of most if not all actors involved, and is embedded across all institutions" (Daly, 2005). SFMP's gender mainstreaming strategy also fails to avoid further marginalizing and burdening women. This may be due to the fact that the main goal of SFMP was food security, rather than equity. In order to create gender integration based on true empowerment, the Ghanaian fisheries sector should more thoroughly mainstream gender on all levels, and future fisheries development projects should consider gender strategies that address the roots of women's oppression, rather than focusing on empowerment merely rooted in goals relating to sustainable fisheries.

Gender Mainstreaming Light in Ghanaian Fisheries
After three years of SFMP's implementation of its gender mainstreaming strategy, the Ghanaian fisheries sector is still in the beginning stages of fully integrating a gendered lens at the grassroots, organizational, and governmental levels.
As of writing, SFMP has less than a year left of programming, thus recommendations relating to gender mainstreaming in fishing communities, associations, NGOs, and the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development will be written for members of the Ghanaian fisheries sector, rather than future SFMP activities. Although it is possible that future aid programs could support these strategies, the Ghanaian fishing sector is the best placed to efficiently and effectively implement these recommendations.
Most of the individuals that have been involved in SFMP activities are aware of women's role in the fisheries sector and they perceive that women can be change agents for sustainable fisheries management. The next step could be to change approaches such that the sector can move from gender "mainstreaming light" to deeper and more far reaching gender integration results. Below you will find recommendations for the Ghanaian fisheries sector, for ways in which gender can be more fully mainstreamed at all levels. Strategies for involving both men and women that address the systemic roots of oppression will be discussed in further detail in the next section of this chapter.

Increase the involvement of traditional fisheries leadership structures in
fisheries governance, including the chief fishmonger/processor, or konkohema.
These leaders may have an untapped potential to lead, manage, and mobilize their communities. Though these queens currently tend to remain silent in a fisher chief's council, the results of this assessment demonstrate that a more focused set of SFMP activities designed to empower the konkohemas and their network might have a profound impact on their abilities to lead, manage, and mobilize members of their communities, and thus increase the number of activists advocating for change (Odotei, 1999).
These five recommendations fit within SFMP and the Ghanaian fisheries sector's current structures. The following section will broaden the focus to look at how fisheries developments of the future, looking to work within USAID programming, can create gender strategies that more fully addresses issues of equity, rather than issues of women's disempowerment within fishing as a livelihood.

Alternative Approaches in Fisheries Development Programming
This section will present alternative approaches to gender mainstreaming, which, rather than strategize integrating a gender perspective into fisheries specific goals, address decreasing the systemic oppression of women as one of their primary goals. These projects were able to work with men and women to help decrease women's oppression at home, within communities, and are primarily situated within This strategy not only addresses women's economic liberation, but works with men to address household inequities, social burdens, and ways to increase the enabling environment in order to create true empowerment.
Men as Partners was designed to work with reproductive health and has since been used in other programming, while Women's Economic Empowerment strategies were designed to work with Violence Against Women and Girls Programing.
SUCCESS was both a fisheries and an HIV/AIDS project. Research suggests that within USAID, these types of programming, and others like 'gender synchronizing' approaches, with gender strategies that truly address systemic roots of oppression, are generally found in projects related to the health sector. SFMP was a project supported primarily through food security funding, and thus its goals were not based on removing the roots of women's oppression. However, the use of the approach throughout differently focused programming, or in programming focused simply on addressing the roots of oppression, suggests that its concepts and tools can be applied to a wide range of issues and populations.
Funding differences between biodiversity and nutrition/livelihoods programming lead to different priorities and strategies for managing fish sustainably.
As seen in Chapter one, while biodiversity funding prioritizes conserving habitats and promoting good governance, nutrition/livelihoods funding has more immediate and short-term goals related to preserving or increasing food security and enabling economic growth. Future fisheries development projects should not only consider how different funding priorities impact fisheries, but should also consider how different funding priorities effect equity.
Since women are often invisible participants in the fisheries sector worldwide, projects involving gender, fisheries, and development of the future must be extra aware of the potential negative impacts associated with using women as key "new" stakeholders in marine governance. Even if expressed mostly to provokesome fishermen, the true extractors of fish, are speaking and acting in a way that places the blame of the small pelagic crisis in Ghana on women processors. By no longer remaining invisible, and instead stepping into a spotlight of advocacy, women have become targets. As a result of this it seems that some women now bear the burden of advocacy, and in some minds, women also bear the burden of blame, in addition to the burdens of household familial and financial health.
In order to achieve equitable change, fisheries development projects need to work more holistically, and therefore change their definition of progress. Instead of placing additional burdens on women, who might not yet live in an environment that enables empowerment or environmental advocacy, projects need to keep in mind the idea of decreasing the burden of women concurrent to strengthening their role in implementing change. There is a need to stop merely asking women to show up and telling them they can act, and instead coupling those messages with reminders that society must also change.
iii. How do you feel about the FC gender mainstreaming action plan? iv. How do you think the FC feels about the gender mainstreaming action plan? 6. Benedicta, tell me a little about: a. Stove Development b. Seafood certification and labeling 7. Big picture Questions: a. Has SFMP given women the enabling conditions that will make increased leadership and decision making possible? Prompts: i.e. Tools and trainings to women and men that allow women to feel empowered to: i. Use their voice ii. Serve as leaders iii. Has the project improved wellbeing?
1. economic 2. influence 3. camaraderie/network b. So women have a seat at the table, but are the conditions such that they can they actually lead management? c. Are they influencing compliance? d. Are these results sustainable when the project leaves? 8. Specific Questions (If not answered above): a. Tell me about your work in relation to Improved legal enabling conditions for co-management, use rights and effort-reduction strategies. i. Are women using improved fish processing techniques? 1. Sustainable? ii. Do they enjoy using improved fish processing techniques? iii. Has there been an increase in the involvement of women as comanagers of fisheries resources? iv. Has co-management gotten easier/increased? v. Are there new legal conditions for women? vi. Have new legal conditions enabled women to participate in effort-reduction strategies? vii. Have legal conditions been improved such that women have more access to use-rights? viii. Have new legal conditions enabled women to participate in effort-reduction strategies? b. 2. Increased constituencies that provide the political and public support needed to rebuild fish stocks. Are women/women groups more involved: i. in voluntary compliance in the fight against illegal fishing methods? ii. in advocacy (what kind of advocacy?) Are they more involved in advocacy at the management level? iii. in policy dialogue? At the management level iv. with decision making? At the advocacy level? v. in public support for rebuilding fish stocks? vi. political support for rebuilding fish stocks? 9. "By the end of the project, we expect to see an institutionalization of practices that increase women's participation in fisheries leadership rolesand showcase that women can play an important and powerful role in sustainable fisheries management, fisheries livelihoods and value chain improvements beyond their traditional post-harvest processing activities." e. Are women actually managing a fishery? Are they involved in managing fisheries? At what levels? f. Are these results sustainable when the project leaves? 5. Specific Questions (If not answered above): a. Tell me about your work in relation to 1. Improved legal enabling conditions for co-management, use rights and effort-reduction strategies. i. Has there been an increase in the involvement of women as comanagers of fisheries resources? ii. Has co-management gotten easier/increased? iii. Are there new legal conditions for women, with relation to comanagement? iv. Have new legal conditions enabled women to participate in effort-reduction strategies? v. Have legal conditions been improved such that women have more access to use-rights? b. 2. Increased constituencies that provide the political and public support needed to rebuild fish stocks. Are women/women groups more involved: i. in voluntary compliance in the fight against illegal fishing methods? ii. in advocacy (what kind of advocacy?) Are they more involved in advocacy at the management level iii. in policy dialogue? At the management level iv. with decision making? v. in public support for rebuilding fish stocks? vi. political support for rebuilding fish stocks? 6. "By the end of the project, we expect to see an institutionalization of practices that increase women's participation in fisheries leadership rolesand showcase that women can play an important and powerful role in sustainable fisheries management, fisheries livelihoods and value chain improvements beyond their traditional post-harvest processing activities." a. This is how SFMP defines it: "Gender Mainstreaming is a globally accepted strategy for promoting gender equality. Mainstreaming is not an end in itself but a strategy, an approach, a means to achieve the goal of gender equality. Mainstreaming involves ensuring that gender perspectives and attention to the goal of gender equality are central to all activities -policy development, research, advocacy/ dialogue, legislation, resource allocation, and planning, implementation and monitoring of programs and projects." (UN WW, 2018) 9. What does "sustainable" mean to you? 10. "Empowerment?" 11. How have your activities involved Men and Women, ensuring everyone has an equal voice and access to benefits? 12. Tell me a little about (if not answered above):

DAA: Development Action Association
a. Densu Delta i. Your work in the past was mainly with women in agriculture, how did you achieve your success with DOPA? b. CLaT c. Stoves d. Capacity development trainings for your organization e. Capacity development trainings you have given 13. Big picture Questions: a. Has SFMP given women the enabling conditions that will make increased leadership and decision making possible? Prompts: i.e. Tools and trainings to women and men that allow women to feel empowered to: i. Use their voice ii. Serve as leaders iii. Influence fisheries policy compliance iv. Has the project improved "well-being?" 1. economic 2. influence 3. Camaraderie/network 2. influence 3. camaraderie/network b. So women have a seat at the table, but can they actually lead management? c. Are these results sustainable when the project leaves? 7. Specific Questions (If not answered above): a. Tell me about your work in relation to 1. Improved legal enabling conditions for co-management, use rights and effort-reduction strategies. i. Has there been an increase in the involvement of women as comanagers of fisheries resources? ii. Has co-management gotten easier/increased? iii. Are there new legal conditions for women? iv. Have new legal conditions enabled women to participate in effort-reduction strategies? v. Have legal conditions been improved such that women have more access to use-rights? vi. Have new legal conditions enabled women to participate in effort-reduction strategies? b. 2. Increased constituencies that provide the political and public support needed to rebuild fish stocks. Are women/women groups more involved: i. in voluntary compliance in the fight against illegal fishing methods? ii. in advocacy (what kind of advocacy?) Are they more involved in advocacy at the management level iii. in policy dialogue? At the management level iv. with decision making? At the advocacy level? v. in public support for rebuilding fish stocks? vi. political support for rebuilding fish stocks? 8. "By the end of the project, we expect to see an institutionalization of practices that increase women's participation in fisheries leadership rolesand showcase that women can play an important and powerful role in sustainable fisheries management, fisheries livelihoods and value chain improvements beyond their traditional post-harvest processing activities." Daasgift Gifty Asmah gftybaabaasmah@gmail.com Roles: 1. FNGO a. Micro finance b. MSME (micro, small, and medium enterprises) 2. Stoves 3. Business Development Training Questions: 1. What does gender mainstreaming mean to you? a. This is how SFMP defines it: "Gender Mainstreaming is a globally accepted strategy for promoting gender equality. Mainstreaming is not an end in itself but a strategy, an approach, a means to achieve the goal of gender equality. Mainstreaming involves ensuring that gender perspectives and attention to the goal of gender equality are central to all activities -policy development, research, advocacy/ dialogue, legislation, resource allocation, and planning, implementation and monitoring of programs and projects." (UN WW, 2018) 2. What does "sustainable" mean to you? 3. "Empowerment"? 4. How have your activities involved Men and Women, ensuring everyone has an equal voice and access to benefits? 5. a. Has SFMP given women the enabling conditions that will make increased leadership and decision making possible? Prompts: i.e. Tools and trainings to women and men that allow women to feel empowered to: i. Use their voice ii. Serve as leaders iii. Influence fisheries policy compliance iv. Has the project impacted well-being?
1. economic 2. influence 3. camaraderie/network b. So women have a seat at the table, but are the conditions such that they can they actually lead management? c. Are women influencing compliance? d. Are women actually managing a fishery? Are they involved in managing fisheries? At what levels? e. Are these results sustainable when the project leaves? 8. "By the end of the project, we expect to see an institutionalization of practices that increase women's participation in fisheries leadership rolesand showcase that women can play an important and powerful role in sustainable fisheries management, fisheries livelihoods and value chain improvements beyond their traditional post-harvest processing activities." v. in public support for rebuilding fish stocks? vi. political support for rebuilding fish stocks? 7. Big picture Questions: a. Has SFMP given women the enabling conditions that will make increased leadership and decision making possible? Prompts: i.e. Tools and trainings to women and men that allow women to feel empowered to: i. Use their voice ii. Serve as leaders iii. Influence fisheries policy compliance iv. Has the project improved "well-being?" b. So women have a seat at the table, but are the conditions such that they can they actually lead management? c. Are women influencing compliance? d. Are women actually managing a fishery? Are they involved in managing fisheries? At what levels? e. Are these results sustainable when the project leaves? 8. "By the end of the project, we expect to see an institutionalization of practices that increase women's participation in fisheries leadership rolesand showcase that women can play an important and powerful role in sustainable fisheries management, fisheries livelihoods and value chain improvements beyond their traditional post-harvest processing activities." fisheries management, fisheries livelihoods and value chain improvements beyond their traditional post-harvest processing activities."

Fisheries Commission Regional Directors and Zonal Officers
1. What does gender mainstreaming mean to you? a. This is how SFMP defines it: "Gender Mainstreaming is a globally accepted strategy for promoting gender equality. Mainstreaming is not an end in itself but a strategy, an approach, a means to achieve the goal of gender equality. Mainstreaming involves ensuring that gender perspectives and attention to the goal of gender equality are central to all activities -policy development, research, advocacy/ dialogue, legislation, resource allocation, and planning, implementation and monitoring of programs and projects." (UN WW, 2018) 2. Have you been involved in SFMP trainings related to gender? a. What have been the effects of those trainings? 3. What trainings/activities have you done to mainstream gender? a. What have been the effects of these trainings? 6. Big picture Questions: a. Has SFMP given women the enabling conditions that will make increased leadership and decision making possible? Prompts: i.e. Tools and trainings to women and men that allow women to feel empowered to: i. Use their voice ii. Serve as leaders iii. Influence fisheries policy compliance iv. Has the project affected "well-being?" 7. "By the end of the project, we expect to see an institutionalization of practices that increase women's participation in fisheries leadership rolesand showcase that women can play an important and powerful role in sustainable fisheries management, fisheries livelihoods and value chain improvements beyond their traditional post-harvest processing activities." iii. Has this participation lead to strengthened science-informed decision making? Once they have the ability and the data, how do they use it? How has this empowered them? 17. Big picture Questions: a. Has SFMP given women the enabling conditions that will make increased leadership and decision making possible? Prompts: i.e. Tools and trainings to women and men that allow women to feel empowered to: i. Use their voice ii. Serve as leaders iii. Influence fisheries policy compliance iv. Has the project affected "well-being?" 1. economic 2. influence 3. camaraderie/network b. So women have a seat at the table, but are the conditions such that they can they actually lead management? c. Are women influencing compliance? d. Are women actually managing a fishery? Are they involved in managing fisheries? At what levels? e. Are these results sustainable when the project leaves? 18. "By the end of the project, we expect to see an institutionalization of practices that increase women's participation in fisheries leadership rolesand showcase that women can play an important and powerful role in sustainable fisheries management, fisheries livelihoods and value chain improvements beyond their traditional post-harvest processing activities."