1. Summary

The regional STREAM Initiative founded by NACA, DFID, FAO, VSO and AusAID aims to offer support to the livelihoods of poor peoples who manage aquatic resources (via management of aquaculture or capture of fish or aquatic resources). STREAM will operate initially for 5 years and will be launched in 2001-2002. It will be hosted in Bangkok by the Secretariat of the Network of Aquaculture Centres for Asia-Pacific and will pilot in Vietnam and Cambodia in year one expanding to cover up to 15 Asia Pacific countries. It is funded by a trust fund and has seed funding from DFID and Asia-Pacific governments.

This document The STREAM Summary Booklet, summarises the rationale, the objectives, approach and stakeholders and issues around implementation. Supplementing this document are the STREAM partner profile sheets (NACA, DFID, FAO, VSO and AusAID), Country Strategy Papers (for each country in which STREAM operates) and Partnership Agreements (with key stakeholders and donors).

2. Rationale

2.1 The importance of aquatic resources to the poor

Throughout the Asia-Pacific region capture fisheries and certain less intensive forms of aquaculture can and do play important roles in securing and enhancing the livelihoods of poor people. The Asia-Pacific region accounts for over 90% of the world's aquaculture production, more than 75% of which comes from low-income food-deficit countries. Smallholder farms cultivate most of this using low-value inputs and traditional technologies.

The management of lacustrine, riverine and rice field fisheries and the use of aquatic resources by poor people play a vital role in livelihoods management, food security, and health and nutrition. Many villages derive benefit, for example, from individual fishing, foraging for aquatic resources, culturing fish, fish catching and processing, supplying commodities to fishers and fish farmers, and distributing and selling products.

As a diversification option, aquaculture is sometimes incorrectly perceived as only a high-risk investment, outside of the scope of the poor. Yet aquatic resources management including aquaculture is not only a useful compliment to land-based livelihoods but can represent a simple, low-risk activity, providing a quick return to fund other activities and building confidence to diversify.

Although people's livelihoods and aquatic resources are seasonally and spatially highly variable, the sale and consumption of products derived from aquatic resource systems are critical to livelihood strategies (particularly coping with vulnerability) and are not easily substituted in the diet (especially of children and pregnant and lactating women).

Well-managed aquatic resources not only provide opportunities for food security and income generation but also locally supplied animal protein and a range of vitamins and essential trace elements, which are found in few other foods. In some parts of South East Asia, for example, aquatic resources comprise a large proportion of the animal protein intake of poor households.

Fish contains large quantities of high biological-value protein, particularly sulphur-containing amino acids that represent a significant supplementary value to vegetable proteins. Small indigenous fish (most commonly captured or cultured by the poor), which are eaten whole, are more nutritious than steaks of larger cultured fish. Importantly, fish (especially small fish eaten whole) is a valuable source of calcium, iron, iodine and Vitamin A. WHO estimate that as many as 125 million children are currently at risk of Vitamin A deficiency in South East Asia. In Vietnam, for example, a UNICEF survey identified 94% iodine deficiency in a random sample of 3,062 schools. Some countries in the region have launched supplementation programmes with Vitamin A capsules, a complementary sustainable solution might also be to encourage dietary diversification and ensure higher dietary intake of Vitamin A-rich foods, such as fish.

2.2 Sharing existing social and human capital

Support to aquatic resources management has so far been in a sectoral context, and focused mainly on research and technology development. Many aquaculture technologies that can contribute to poverty alleviation are already in place, whilst research on the major fisheries is advancing well and could influence resource use in the Mekong sub-region.

It is often wrongly assumed that a lack of technical knowledge is the key constraint to poor people's management of natural resources. Evidence is increasingly showing that poor people have an enormous store of 'indigenous technical knowledge', such as the use of medicinal plants, water harvesting structures, fishing sites, seasonal fish migrations and others, but this knowledge is often undervalued or ignored.

Successful examples of aquatic resource management practices do exist in the region. However, there is little documentation of lessons learned, few opportunities for dialogue and mutual learning, and sometimes poorly coordinated efforts to inform policy makers of the benefits of these approaches. As a result, awareness of successful practice among policy-makers, government agencies, regional institutions, non-government workers and natural resource users is low.

These problems are compounded by the fact that much of the current information available on poor people's livelihoods and natural resource management issues tend to be disseminated within limited networks. Information gathering and dissemination has been mainly in print, often in English, and usually packaged for presentation to a fairly well defined audience.

These factors often take away locality and prevent natural resource users from participating in existing networks, because most poor people tend to share knowledge through local language text, and oral and visual communication systems.

2.3 Addressing broader and governance issues

Aside from technology, many key aquatic resource management issues relate to resource access and control, the livelihoods of poor people, and governance. There is a growing recognition of the importance of socio-economic issues, and widespread discussion of 'livelihoods'. As sustainable livelihoods frameworks become more readily accepted there is a greater understanding that:

• More effective participation of poor resource users in all stages of the policy-making process is not only a means for more effective development, but is a development objective in itself
• Viewing poverty alleviation in a more holistic framework argues the need for more effective co-ordination between the aquatic resource and poverty alleviation sectors, and across other sectors.

Therefore, a key challenge must now be to promote support agencies and institutions that (a) utilise existing and emerging information more effectively, (b) better-understand poor people's livelihoods, and (c) enable poor people to exert greater influence over policies and processes that impact on their lives.

To meet this challenge, the policies and processes of mediating institutions, and their capacity to (a) identify aquatic resource management issues impacting on the livelihoods of the poor, (b) monitor and evaluate different management approaches, (c) extend information, and (d) network within and between sectors and countries, need to be developed.

2.4 Opportunities for STREAM

Giving the poor greater access to and supporting the sustainable management of aquatic resources requires major reform of aquatic resources governance and service provision. The constraints are numerous, complex and inter-related, but include:

• Weak technical capacity of fisheries departments, particularly in poverty focused initiatives, extension, and community development.
• Lack of responsive government institutions, further impeded by limited budgets, low salaries, a lack of job descriptions, and ineffective lines of responsibility.
• Poor implementation of fisheries legislation, often compounded by a weak legislative framework.

These constraints relate to policy, legislation, administration, and the relative power of different actors, many of which cannot be addressed by an initiative the size of STREAM.

Despite these formidable challenges, several on-going changes in the region provide opportunities for STREAM to facilitate reforms that can spread the benefits of aquatic resources more widely and provide greater livelihoods opportunities for the poor. There is now strong agreement amongst many governments that aquaculture and improved aquatic resources management can make a significant and direct impact on poverty reduction and hunger eradication in the region. Many governments have also emphasised a desire to learn the experiences of implementing other livelihoods-based approaches to natural resources management in the region.

Although these changes present opportunities to tackle poverty and promote good governance, government agencies and institutions struggle to respond effectively to local needs and priorities. In addition, a lack of awareness at the grass roots as to the roles, responsibilities, and tools associated with natural resource management prevents the development and replication of approaches.

These are all areas where STREAM can add value to on-going change processes in the region, by providing support mechanisms that:

• Build capacity in participatory livelihoods approaches and analyses
• Change attitudes through increased awareness of current issues and approaches
• Build consensus and shared understanding between different stakeholders
• Demonstrate to all groups that it is feasible to have aquatic resource management by local groups in the interests of a broader group, including the poor
• Empower a wide range of stakeholders through strengthened learning and communication channels.

STREAM is ambitious. It aims to address the key issue of limited communication between stakeholders by facilitating a change in paradigm, in which inclusion of the poor is a development objective in itself. Policy change processes are also complex and poorly understood. Thus although learning, communications and inclusion will facilitate policy change opportunities, such processes do not guarantee pro-poor policy change outcomes.

However, the need for more livelihoods-based approaches is appreciated by STREAM's partners, as too is the necessity for large-scale capacity building, especially at local provincial and district levels. In addition, the initiative's learning and communications actions are at the request of fisheries sector line agencies, whilst the capacity building actions are designed to encourage, support and strengthen on-going policy change processes in the region.

3. STREAM objectives

The STREAM objectives are set out in Box 1.

Box 1: STREAM objectives Goal To secure and enhance the livelihoods of poor people in the Asia-Pacific region Purpose To develop capacity for poor and vulnerable aquatic resource users in the Asia-Pacific region to pursue their livelihood objectives Outputs Processes that identify poor aquatic resource users, understand their livelihoods, and highlight their capabilities and objectives, are strengthened Appropriate strategies, practices and processes that demonstrate poor people can manage their aquatic resources are identified Regional communication and learning between poor aquatic resource users, line agencies, civil society, researchers and the private sector is improved Policy and institutional changes, which are designed to better support the livelihoods objectives of aquatic resource users, are supported.

4. STREAM approach

The STREAM approach is embodied in the mission statement and guiding principles set out in Box 2. To put these principles into practice the STREAM Initiative will adopt the following approaches.

Box 2: Mission statement and guiding principles Mission statement STREAM seeks to build capacity to understand and secure the livelihoods of poor aquatic resource users, accelerate communication and learning between stakeholders, and facilitate policy-making that supports the interests of the poor throughout the Asia Pacific region. Guiding principles Policy change The active development of policies, institutions and processes that work for and include the poor is necessary to breakdown the inequity of power that constrains poor aquatic resource users from realising livelihood opportunities. Securing effective participation and sustainable livelihoods Aquatic resource management will be both appropriate and sustained, if those whose livelihood strategies depend on aquatic resources are fully involved in the definition of objectives and policies. Centrality of communications Dialogue and collaboration between stakeholders will increase awareness and skills for livelihoods support for and by poor people, and the sustainable management of aquatic resources. Open process and partnerships An open process promoting collaboration and partnership among institutions and agencies will facilitate support for the livelihoods of poor people. STREAM will provide a platform for cooperation and an opportunity for more effective institutional collaboration towards common development goals that support poor people.

4.1 Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia-Pacific

STREAM will operate through the Secretariat of the Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia-Pacific (NACA), an intergovernmental agency of 15 member Asia-Pacific countries. STREAM will support NACA to operationalise its new focus on poverty alleviation and improving the livelihoods of people living in rural areas, by building on the agency's well-respected technical and networking experience of the past two decades.

NACA is funded by contributions from member governments. As such, it represents a well-used and effective vehicle for regional networking. NACA has a long-term presence and strong ownership by national line agencies that wish to pursue a rural development remit, broader networking, and the implementation of STREAM.

Following the endorsement and strong mandate for the implementation of STREAM from the governments of the region at the 12th NACA Governing Council Meeting (held in December 2000) NACA is likely to be more effective at building confidence in line agencies to implement change and maintaining peer pressure for change towards a pro-poor agenda.

4.2 A coalition of partners

STREAM will adopt an inclusive approach, reaching out to link stakeholders engaged in aquatic resources management and supporting them to influence the initiative's design, implementation, and management.

The diverse coalition of partners that are supporting the start-up of STREAM have worked together since January 2000 to build consensus, negotiate a shared vision, input different experiences and expertise into the planning process, and implement pilot activities in Cambodia and Vietnam. Although at an early stage, there is now growing momentum for these partners to work together to ensure STREAM becomes an effective support instrument for poor aquatic resource users. This coalition will increase in size and diversity as STREAM expands into other countries, and awareness and understanding of the initiative increases among other stakeholders.

Networks have a key role to play in information generation and other dimensions of national and regional interaction. Current joint working between start-up partners and other regional organisations augers well for future donor collaboration and effective joined up working under the STREAM Initiative.

4.3 A regional approach

People, water and living aquatic resources are interconnected at a very local level, administered nationally, but commonly are trans-boundary in nature. The planning and management of aquatic resources is necessarily local, national and regional. STREAM will therefore take a regional approach.

The regional dimension is especially relevant because of the degree of commonality in the problems and solutions across the region. There will be efficiencies and economies of scale in having a wider regional platform for learning and sharing experience. In addition to more information and greater access to experience, support and positive examples from other countries strengthens the effectiveness of advocacy, by providing legitimacy and policy influence from national governments and/or intergovernmental bodies.

A substantial aquatic resource management knowledge base already exists in the region, much of which is based on indigenous knowledge. A regional approach will maximise the use of this information, ensure regional expertise is optimised, and provide greater opportunities for south-south dialogue and mutual learning.

4.4 Iterative start up

STREAM implementation will be an iterative process, piloting initially in a small number of NACA member countries only, but with a commitment to expand to others as experience is gained, lessons are learned, impact is demonstrated, and additional funding is secured.

In 2002, STREAM will pilot in Cambodia and Vietnam only, where opportunities exist to tackle poverty and promote good governance. These were selected by NACA using transparent selection criteria, including:

• The importance of the aquatic resources sector to the country's national economy and the livelihoods of poor people
• The potential for STREAM to add value to on-going policy changes in the country
• The country's willingness to share their experiences with others in the region
• The country's position on the HDI
• The strategic priorities of STREAM's founding partners.

STREAM is likely to expand to countries in the region in 2003, and in 2004, though this will depend on an implementation review at the end of 2001 and expressions of interest from other NACA member countries. Identifying potential policy influence opportunities will be a key factor when selecting other STREAM target countries.

STREAM's communication strategy will help to increase impact, by ensuring that the region's existing knowledge and expertise informs the change process in Cambodia and Vietnam, and that the lessons learned in Cambodia and Vietnam are disseminated throughout the NACA member countries.

4.5 Building capacity

STREAM will support capacity building among local government institutions, NGOs, and community groups involved in aquatic resources management to better understand and secure livelihoods. It will provide training and long-term practical support in livelihoods analyses and participatory approaches, support poor aquatic resource users to participate more effectively in policy-making processes, and encourage the development of more responsive government institutions.

STREAM's communication strategy will include an important capacity building element, particularly in terms of (a) increasing the capacity of organisations to utilise learning and share knowledge, (b) supporting the documentation of learning initiatives, (c) supporting disadvantaged aquatic resource users to document their experiences, and (d) increasing the capacity of networking organisations to disseminate information.

STREAM will enable partners to better identify and disseminate best practice, by providing support to monitor and evaluate different aquatic resources management approaches, and to address the gap that exists between farmers/fishers needs and extension service provision.

4.6 Supporting community learning initiatives

Though successful aquatic resource management approaches exist in the region, the number that can contribute to STREAM's four outputs is limited. To increase the number of successful approaches from which lessons learned can influence policy changes, STREAM will support a number of new small-scale community-based learning initiatives. The practical experiences of these demonstrations will combine with lessons learned from existing case studies and feed into STREAM's communication strategy to influence policy and practice in the region.

4.7 Improving communication

STREAM is developing a regional communications and learning strategy to increase the participation of poor aquatic resource users in decision-making processes and ensure policy-making is informed by lesson learning. This will involve facilitated access to digital and other information.

The communication strategy will realise the considerable potential that exists to facilitate lesson-learning and improved co-ordination between current aquatic resource initiatives, as well as other initiatives that work with rural people dependent on aquatic resources but which address issues such as health and nutrition, community forestry, and governance.

The communication strategy will aim to contribute to and extend the reach of existing networks in the region, as well as existing partnerships between government agencies, NGOs, community organisations and resource users. Extending the reach of networks between poor resource users will be particularly important, since they are an essential mechanism for helping civil society to demand responsive government institutions and processes.

Although there is a considerable wealth of aquatic resource-related information in the region, it is not always readily available or available in appropriate formats. STREAM will contribute communication approaches to support information dissemination in user-friendly practical forms that promote effective lesson learning and policy change. This will include case studies/trials as learning initiatives, workshops and field visits, translation of materials to and from local languages, video and photographic diaries, use of the public media and the internet, media tracking and issue monitoring, digital literacy training, discussion groups, pictorial communication, etc. The public media are essential instruments of civil society and therefore have considerable potential to generate debate, involve poor aquatic resource users, and support advocacy campaigns, thereby facilitating greater influence on key issues and policy discussions.

Areas of interest are likely to focus on co-management, small-scale aquaculture (including building linkages with other sectors), sustainable livelihoods, and linking aquatic resource management to governance and decentralisation.

Small accountable grants will be available to support the development of lesson learning amongst partnerships with civil society organisations, national and local government, and aquatic resource associations who can strategically contribute towards STREAM's communication strategy.

4.8 Policy and institutional changes

STREAM will support on-going policy and institutional changes in the region, by facilitating policy development at the national level, increasing exposure to lessons and experience at the community level, maximising utilisation of the existing regional knowledge base, and providing capacity-building support to the change process.

More reliable data concerning the production and socio-economic value of capture fisheries and small-scale aquaculture technologies is now available. However, it is increasingly apparent that the provision of such information does not in itself necessarily lead to policy outcomes. Likewise, many 'policy influencing strategies' are often based on assumptions of how policy processes work and the relationship between these strategies and policy outcomes are not always clear.

STREAM will aim to contribute to a more strategic understanding of the relationship between information, communication, and policy outcomes through analyses of policy-making processes in the region. The communication strategy will promote methods of data gathering, analysis, and dissemination that support the effective participation of poor resource users, and aims to institutionalise their role in communicating with policy makers.

It is often assumed that policy only refers to official pronouncements and legislation, rather than what is implemented. It is also possible to influence policy through local level implementation that is later supported through official policy, rather than wait for appropriate legislation. This was the approach adopted in community forestry in Cambodia, for example. While the debates have continued about appropriate legislation, local level implementation has continued with provincial support and has fed into the lesson learning process that has informed the policy discussion. STREAM will aim to highlight and support such approaches to policy influence in the aquatic resources sector through the sharing and implementation of learning initiatives.
 

5. Stakeholders

The initiative has at its core an inclusive learning and communications platform that will link a diverse range of stakeholders in order to shape opinion, plan strategically, and learn. The initiative will allow groups to present their own perspectives, views and aspirations in relation to aquatic resources management in the region.

Stakeholders have been classified in into potential policy partner categories:

P1: Poor people in villages that depend on aquatic resources that are important but have little influence

P2: Those who influence opinion, link and bring together others stakeholders, and who shape ideas or concepts about aquatic resources management

P3: Government and private sector organisations who make official policy or have significant influence on policy formulation or on day-to-day practice.

There are many challenges to stakeholder networking. There is (sometimes armed and violent) conflict between some of these stakeholders in some parts of the region. Policy change is ongoing in several places. Decentralisation is aiming to empower local level democratic institutions to manage natural resources. Information and knowledge flows are segmented between stakeholders and geographically.

5.1 Gender

Access to aquatic resources is more limited for women than for men. In extreme cases, men are using sexual assault and the threat of sexual violence to restrict women's mobility and access to natural resources. Laws dealing with rape and sexual harassment are still to be passed in some countries.

The absence of legal protection is a barrier to women's full participation in access and control of natural resources. This impacts especially on families headed by women. It further obstructs the fundamental right of all women to live without the fear of violence both inside and outside of the home.

Political power often accumulated via patronage systems disadvantages women, as they are often unable to amass the economic and social resources necessary to sustain such relationships. For lasting and effective rural development it is necessary to confront these cultural and structural barriers that inhibit the transformation of existing gender inequalities and inequities.

STREAM will maximise the sharing of issues of relevance to women and men by working with mixed gender teams to conduct livelihoods analyses. The formation of livelihood teams from the provincial Department of Women's Affairs and Department of Fisheries in Cambodia, and the Vietnamese Women's Union and Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, underlines this commitment amongst STREAM partners.
 

6. Implementation

6.1 Strategic management

STREAM will follow a process approach managed by a Strategic Management Team that is integrated into the NACA Secretariat, and provided with resources to support activities by civil society and government that deliver the initiative's four outputs.

The Strategic Management Team will comprise the STREAM Director, a Senior Support Officer, a Support Officer, and a NACA core staff member (Rural Development Specialist). Other NACA staff (for example, Computing and Database Specialist) and external consultants will support the team as and when necessary.

The Strategic Management Team will work together with representatives from key legitimate stakeholders and will also report to the NACA governing council, who will be responsible for providing a strategic overview and informing policy at the national and regional levels.

6.2 Communications management

STREAM will adopt a matrix approach to communications management to ensure effective communication between the initiative's diverse range of stakeholders spread over a wide geographical area. This will include the use of the internet, e-mail, telephone, printed documentation, and national and regional team meetings. There will be three principle lines of communication:

• At the national level, STREAM Co-ordinating Teams will co-ordinate national capacity building and the national sharing of information. These teams will comprise representatives from community groups, government ministries and departments, provincial and district authorities, NGOs, research and training organisations, and donor initiatives, with the aim of uniting broad groups of national stakeholders to better share knowledge and increase collaboration within countries. A Team Co-ordinator will be employed to co-ordinate communication between national stakeholders, with other National Co-ordinating Teams, and with STREAM's Functional Units.
• At the regional level, STREAM co-ordination will be the responsibility of the Strategic Management Team. The initiative will be co-ordinated through five Functional Units, Poverty and Livelihoods, Information Resource Development, Communications, Policy Development, and Special Issues. These relate to STREAM's four outputs, whilst the 'Special Issues' Unit is designed to ensure that STREAM responds to emerging opportunities and challenges in a timely manner. These Units will facilitate regional capacity building and the regional sharing of information. They will operate under the guidance of the Strategic Management Team, with different members of the team being responsible for the co-ordination of each Unit.
• STREAM will support the development of communication lines between National Co-ordinating Teams through the initiative's learning initiatives and elements of the communication strategy (study tours, exchanges, etc). Where appropriate, STREAM will provide other forms of support to build upon the links established through these activities.

Box 7: Communications management - a matrix approach

This approach to communications management will be piloted in 2002 in Cambodia and Vietnam only, with a view to expanding it to other target countries as lessons are learned and experience gained. National Co-ordinating Team members, and transparent, cost-effective communication and organisational mechanisms will aim to ensure mechanisms are culturally appropriate to each country and nationally owned.

To ensure the existing knowledge and expertise from the region informs change processes in Vietnam and Cambodia, and that the lessons learned in Cambodia and Vietnam are disseminated more broadly, STREAM's communication strategy will operate beyond the two pilot countries. It will achieve this by working with potential National Co-ordinating Team members in other countries as and when opportunities arise to do so.

STREAM will not duplicate structures but operate through existing networks and institutions, strengthening their capacity where there is a need to do so. In Vietnam, for example, STREAM will operate through the Implementation Unit of the Sustainable Aquaculture for Poverty Alleviation (SAPA) strategy in the Ministry of Fisheries as part of the Hunger Eradication and Poverty Reduction Programme of the Ministry of Labour, Invalids, and Social Affairs (MOLISA), and in Cambodia through the Community Fisheries Development Office of the Department of Fisheries in Partnership with the NGO SCALE. In other countries, embryonic national co-ordination initiatives who seek partnership might be supported.

6.3 Financial management

NACA has established a STREAM Initiative Trust. The STREAM Strategic Management Team will be responsible for the transparent, cost-effective administration of this fund.

6.4 Monitoring and evaluation

External monitoring and evaluation will be carried out on an annual basis and contracted out to an independent organisation approved by and working on behalf of all donors to the STREAM trust fund. This will remove the administrative burden from donors and provide a single transparent mechanism for the coherent evaluation of the initiative.

Internal monitoring and evaluation is central to the STREAM process and poses special challenges owing to the complex nature of the changes supported, and the geographical spread of partners. To ensure these reviews are informed by practical on-the-ground experience, STREAM will use significant change approaches to monitoring and evaluating changes at the community and district levels, providing capacity building support to local level partners where there is a need to do so. STREAM will build on the experiences of VSO, Bangladesh NGOs and other practitioners who have used this bottom-up monitoring and evaluating approach to record changes at the grassroots. Implementation of the approach will also act as a useful learning tool for all STREAM partners.

Annual meetings will be organised with key stakeholders to assess progress with activities, outputs, the manner of implementation, and the selection of additional STREAM countries. These will review changes in the wider policy environment, including the backward and forward tracking of important policy changes, analyses of local and national level policy linkages, and the potential for STREAM to support changes in other countries. Against this background, the annual reviews will consider the progress and continued relevance of:

• Implementation of activitie
• The achievement of outputs, the balance between the four outputs, and their relevance to (and lessons learned for) the evolving policy environment
• The operation and effectiveness of partnerships with the three stakeholder groups, the balance between them, and the extent of participation
• The strength of links with donors and prospects for working towards a common framework for supporting aquatic resources management in the region
• The way the initiative is being implemented (effectiveness of facilitation, effectiveness of communications management, effectiveness of partnerships, scope for joint funding with other donors)
• Existing STREAM countries and potential new ones.

An Output to Purpose review will take place at the end of 2003, and assess the prospects for achieving the purpose and expanding to other countries. It will also look ahead and develop preliminary ideas for sustaining the outputs and impact beyond the end of the initiative.

Monitoring and evaluation findings will be reported to the governments at the annual meeting of the NACA Governing Council.