Cutting edge work puts local people at the heart of policy and practice
IIED’s innovative work on how social protection programmes can support small-scale fishers, fish farmers and fish workers has influenced investments in more than five countries.
Small-scale purse seine fishers catch cuttlefish in Van Phong Bay, central Vietnam (Photo: WorldFish, via Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
A partnership between IIED and the World Bank on the bank’s blue social protection initiative has spurred (at the timing of writing) more than five country teams to break internal silos by integrating social protection into fisheries projects, helping to reshape the way the bank funds coastal programmes.
A consistent change is the elevation of overlooked people – small scale farmers and fishers, women and local producers – into the heart of policy and practice.
This is one of the most important pieces of work that we will do on fisheries...but let’s not leave it at this paper. It needs to be used – it’s the first arrow in our quiver not the last one. We need to take this to clients and show them what they can do to provide formal safety nets to those losing the ability to fish due to international agreements
- World Bank global director, about the project's handbook
This is cutting edge work and numerous challenges remain that limit uptake of the approach. For example, weak monitoring, evaluation and learning hinder impact and make it difficult to justify investment.
Nevertheless, IIED’s role in building evidence, producing guidance and connecting diverse partnership and networks has been vital to shifting narratives and catalysing uptake, laying a strong foundation for broader, systemic change and sustainable food systems.
