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Abstract

This study uses inverse probability weighting and matching estimators to examine the impact of women's training in small-scale fisheries value chain on their incomes, household food security, and dietary quality in four sub-Saharan countries. It further investigates pathways by which training influences households' food consumption. The analysis reveals that households of trained women experience 8-9 percentage points higher food security and 3 percentage points better dietary quality compared to untrained counterparts. Additionally, trained women earn an average of USD 20-25 more than those without training. Cross-country analysis highlights variations in impact, with the strongest improvements in household food security observed in Sierra Leone and Tanzania, while dietary quality gains were most significant in Ghana and Malawi. Incomes of trained women were notably higher in Ghana (USD 31-44) and Malawi (USD 29-39), though results for Tanzania and Sierra Leone were not statistically significant. The study identifies increased fisheries-related income and household fish consumption as the key transmission channels of impact. These heterogenous findings underscore the need for gender-sensitive capacity-building programs that increase women's participation in fisheries. Such programmes must be tailored to the specific dynamics of each country, including entrenched norms and barriers to women's active involvement in the SSF sector.

Keywords

Training; small-scale fisheries; income; food security; dietary quality; J16; Q01; Q18; Q22

Published in

Journal of Development Studies
2025
Publisher: ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR AND FRANCIS LTD

SLU Authors

UKÄ Subject classification

Development Studies
Economics

Publication identifier

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2025.2525855

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/143199