Role of women
The participation of women in seaweed farming in WIO is reported to be more or same as that of men(132, 133). For example, since its introduction seaweed commercial farming in 1989 in Zanzibar Island women have been the main producer of this important product. It is supported by available data that in 1989 there were larger number of women farmers than men farmers on both Unguja and Pemba (134). In this case the gender data obtained from the Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources, Livestock and Fisheries (MANLF) in Zanzibar showed that the seaweed industry is dominated by women than men as 78% of farmers in Zanzibar were women and 90% of Tanzania mainland were women (93). The trend was not different according to MANLF statistics of 2012, the number of women farmers was 8094 on Unguja and 10,378 on Pemba, as compared with 605 and 4612 men respectively (93). This also led to the shift of some of household system from patriarch to matriarch. This means some women as they gain some stable income from seaweed farming become head of their household unit (135). The trend is not different in some other countries of WIO where seaweed farming takes place except for Mauritanius, where there is low involvement of women as compared to that of men (133). This is supported by the number of women who attended training sponsored by Mauritius Research Council (MRC) conducted in Mauritius and Rodrigues. In Mauritius 33% of the 40 participants were women and in Rodrigues, there were 26 women, 43% of the total of 61 people (133). However, this is not enough to justify those who participated in real farming as training attendance may be done by the nomination of members by respective organisation and cannot accommodate many people.
In Madagascar, commercial seaweed farming began in 1977 using the local strain of kappaphycus striatus as means of improving cash income for local communities. The project was supported by the European Development fund and Food Manufacturing Cooperation (FMC USA). Although there was no specific information available concerning the involvement of women in seaweed farming in Madagascar, however, most projects focused on women and their welfare. It was noted by a report from Blue Ventures (2015), that 50% of the 700 farm workers who were integrating seaweed and sea cucumber aquaculture operations in the WIO were women (136).
Therefore, living along the coastal area women participation in seaweed farming has benefit of increasing household income which allow increased accessed to food and education as well as alleviating pressure to marine biodiversity.