There are many “stakeholders” involved in the development of schemes to support tribal people to undertake aquaculture. These should include tribal people, researchers, policy-makers and others. Stakeholders often face a situation in which different people have conflicting views. Such differences can be over the appropriate goals of a scheme, the types of outcomes, who should be helped and in what way, or the merit and worth of particular activities.

The aim of the Policy Review Workshop, as with all project activities, was “contributing to ‘giving people a voice’ in policy-making processes that have an impact on their livelihoods”. The workshop objectives included: Through six case studies, stakeholder statements and a street-play, understand the experiences of rural aquaculture services provision from the perspectives of recipients and providers; review the process for transacting policy change and lessons learnt; and make recommendations for policy change based on project outcomes.

The meetings and this document discuss the lessons learnt by project R8100 and consider how the follow on project might take these forward. This document combines the minutes of the Delhi meetings and the Stakeholder meeting in Ranchi, and captures as stories the summary of project R8100 and the visit to Jabarrah. The objectives of R8334 are presented, with comments on these recorded, and the project flow chart and proposed revisions to it are included.

Three consecutive State-level Communications Strategy Workshops were held in the capitals of Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal states. The aim of the workshops, as with all project activities, was to “contribute to ‘giving people a voice’ in policy-making processes that have an impact on their livelihoods.” The specific objectives were to review and orient participants to the project’s four outputs and to draft a state-level communications strategy, including ideas for a monitoring and evaluation process.

This Learning Workshop on Livelihoods Analysis was held in Long An Province, Vietnam from 19-20 November 2002. It was part of an ongoing series of activities that will inform the implementation of the Ministry of Fisheries Strategy on Sustainable Aquaculture for Poverty Alleviation under the Vietnamese Government’s Hunger Eradication and Poverty Reduction (HEPR) Program. The recruitment in October of Nguyen Song Ha, STREAM Vietnam Communications Hub Manager, improved preparations within the Vietnamese national context.