Women’s governance and innovation (GEFI)
The GEFI project aims to improve women's governance in the processing of agri-food products in three villages of the Saloum Delta (Dionewar, Niodior and Falia), in the context of climate change.
Overview of the project
The GEFI project aims to improve women’s governance in the processing of agri-food products in three villages in the Saloum Delta (Dionewar, Niodior and Falia), in the context of climate change.
This project has many objectives, three of which are presented here.
The first is to preserve biodiversity through better management of fisheries resources in a context of overexploitation and ecosystem changes related to climate change. The recommended approach is twofold:
- the enhancement of agri-food products through improved processing, i.e. respecting sanitary standards, benefiting from a distribution network limiting intermediaries and integrating entrepreneurial management. This valorization allows less intensive exploitation of the halieutic resource.
- Scientific and participatory monitoring of the fisheries resource, allowing the introduction of preservation measures such as the identification of declining mudflats, biological rest of the resource, and selective harvesting of the resource.
The second objective is the development of a circular economy model that allows the diversification of the exploited resource while maintaining a sustainability criterion in the activities. This circular economy model, developed in collaboration with women’s groups, allows the development of alternative and inclusive economic activities, the improvement of working conditions, and optimized transformation of the resource and better management of residual materials.
The third objective is to raise awareness among the population about climate change and its impacts. This awareness is ensured by climate ambassadors, who are sons or daughters of the villages trained in the framework of the project to environmental issues as well as to the skills necessary to conduct awareness activities. The training and awareness-raising activities aim to ensure that local populations have a better understanding of the environmental issues threatening their communities, and can implement alternative behaviours that are favourable to the environment.
Women's governance in agri-food processing in a context of climate change.
Ongoing research
01/04/2020 - 01/31/2024 - project still in progress
The project is in its first year and activities are being developed. We expect quantitative results in terms of increased income for women processors, a number of circular economy activities developed, people trained in personal skills as well as in entrepreneurial and participatory management, people sensitized to environmental issues and alternative solutions, among others.
This project is funded through Global Affairs Canada's (GAC) Small and Medium Enterprise Program
organisation
The Cégep de la Gaspésie et des Îles (CGI) is an institution of higher learning located in Eastern Canada. The CGI has been active in international cooperation for some thirty years and has recently opened an office in Dakar to facilitate the coordination of its projects in West Africa. The current projects of the GGI are the GEFI project presented here as well as a sub-regional project in the coastal regions of Guinea-Bissau, Republic of Guinea, Gambia and Senegal. The projects focus on the development of participatory and inclusive women’s governance, as well as on improving resource transformation methods through the implementation of a circular economy model, in the context of climate change.
in collaboration