Participatory planning and implementation of fish-based livelihood innovations in Timor-Leste

Fish and other aquatic foods are the backbone of island economies in Southeast Asia and the Pacific
(Gillett 2016). Governments and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have made substantial efforts to
reduce pressure on natural resources and improve incomes and food security by introducing alternative
livelihood activities in rural coastal communities or enhancing existing ones (Pomeroy et al. 2017; Stacey
et al. 2019). Initiatives based on outsiders’ priorities and designs, which do not adequately consider the
capacity, needs and aspirations of community members, are unlikely to succeed (O’Garra 2007; Gillett et
al. 2008; Govan et al. 2019). Participatory approaches, which incorporate the ideas, needs and problems of
community members, can result in more appropriate and longer-lasting development outcomes. Yet these
approaches can have their own challenges. External agencies may need to be flexible, relinquish control
over the process of identifying and prioritizing initiatives, and build capacity to facilitate discussions and
enable critical reflection by participants. Similarly, community members may need to navigate differences
in perspectives to identify common objectives and agree on a plan of action (Douthwaite et al. 2015).
This report documents the process, outcomes and lessons identified from a 4-year coastal livelihoods
enhancement project in Timor-Leste using a participatory approach with two groups of people
(40 participants in total) from two rural coastal communities. We find that there are opportunities to
harness the economic and nutritional value of coastal aquatic foods in Timor-Leste. People in coastal
communities are willing and interested to test out their ideas for enhancing their fish-based and
coastal livelihoods. However, ideas can be limited to those in neighboring communities, and people
may not be accustomed to working collectively. Facilitating access to training and building capacity
to bridge the rural-urban divide are important components of making such initiatives a success.
Resource intensive projects like these can benefit their participants and generate important learning, but
they are not feasible nor desirable to replicate in all Timorese coastal communities. Rather, alternative
models of enabling community-led development are needed, with associated targeted support from
fisheries agencies. More people in coastal communities in Timor-Leste could implement their ideas for
improving their livelihoods at their own scale and pace, if the activities of government and its development
partners shifted to more extension-based advisory and capacity building services. Such activities
could focus on (a) facilitating better access to fish-associated information for people in rural coastal
communities, (b) establishing links between similar small-scale efforts to facilitate peer-to-peer sharing
and (c) providing training and microloans to interested communities and community groups. Municipality
fishery officers could play a key role if provided with adequate fiscal resources and workplans that focus
on extension-based advisory and capacity building services that enable community-led development.