At a glance
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The Invisible Fishers: Empowering and Safeguarding Women in Fisheries Value Chains in Ghana to Reduce Anemia
In Brief
A clinical study evaluating Mobile phone audio messaging, Peer-to-peer learning, and 4 other interventions for Anemia. Completed, enrolled 120 participants across 1 site.
Detailed Summary
This pilot study aims to introduce three interventions directed toward mitigating anemia among women in Ghana, including: 1) multi-sectoral behavior change, 2) strengthening market engagement of fish processors, 3) improving fish smoking technology and practices. These interventions will be implemented among female fish processors, a population that represents a promising focal area for intervention within fisheries value chains, which have been identified as a uniquely promising sector for intervention to mitigate anemia among women. The investigators expect that the findings from this study will inform understanding of how best to design, implement, and evaluate interventions into fisheries and other animal-source food value chains in Ghana and across sub-Saharan Africa to address anemia and other nutritional and health concerns.
Study Details
Timeline
Interventions
Audio messages will be "pushed" to participants' mobile phones twice weekly on a set schedule in discrete modules that include basic information related to each of the four behavioral domains followed by an integration of the information across behaviors through relatable, character-driven narratives that enable message recipients to engage with the content through a real-world context.
Women participants in each community will meet twice monthly for peer-to-peer learning sessions to reinforce the content of audio messages. These sessions will further use women's empowerment approaches including critical examination of gender dynamics, and discussions of solutions for equitable decision-making and control of resources within households. These discussions will be facilitated with male household members and grandmothers in separate learning sessions that will be held three times throughout the intervention period.
Participants will receive a conditional cash transfer to support their fish smoking business. The payment will be conditional on their participation in entrepreneurship trainings and the use of the investment into their fish smoking business.
Entrepreneurship training will focus on commonly lacking business knowledge, with an emphasis on establishing fundamental entrepreneurial skills (i.e., customer care, accounting), sound business management and decision-making, building strong and sustainable business relationships, and encouraging the use of loans for their intended purposes. This training will be introduced during the credit and savings group (CSG) meetings that will occur twice per month.
Average market prices for fresh and processed fish at community, district, and regional markets will be disseminated via audio message calls (using Viamo's Infoline platform) to the mobile phones of women with the price information in their preferred language. These market prices will be collected twice weekly by Viamo field enumerators and sent to regional coordinators for validation. A second, independent validation will be carried out to ensure that there are no discrepancies.
Local private sector artisans will construct and serve as suppliers of the new ovens. The promotion, uptake and impact of these improved Ahotor ovens will be tested among study participants. Awareness-raising workshops held in each community will promote the Ahotor in concert with a public retrofitting of a Chorkor stove. Immediately following this event, one month later, and three months later, study participants will receive additional one-on-one counseling to provide further support on the proper use of the smoke oven, as well as on optimal handling and smoking practices to enhance product quality.