© Joe Steensma
Founded in 2020, SAGE seeks to foster space within the seafood sector to address the issues of gender inequality, sparking a movement to acknowledge the critical contributions of women who are often overlooked.
The success of the project in achieving over $700,000 of funding from the Builders Initiative and the Walton Family Foundation is a significant step for the development of an equitable and diverse seafood sector, securing the activities of the project for the next three years.
"By championing gender equality in the seafood industry, we are actively shaping the future we want to see. SAGE is urging seafood companies to evaluate their practices, address biases, and implement decisive measures to promote gender equality within their operations. We are pleased to partner with them to advance change in the industry and cultivate a more inclusive and sustainable seafood sector," said Jelani Odlum, programme officer at the Builders Initiative, in a press release.
Over the next three years, the funding will support the implementation of the project’s Gender Equality Dialogues (GED), at which seafood executives come together to discuss and commit to future actions to support gender equality within the sector. Following a recent year-long pilot of the GED, the programme highlights the public commitments of the participating companies to acknowledge how their current practices may limit gender equality, and to engage in efforts to change these.
“To find solutions that work for people and nature, we need the best ideas from everyone. The seafood industry has often left too many people out of the process. The foundation is impressed with the companies in the GED and their commitments to building gender equality in the seafood industry. Over 2,300 employees will be positively affected by the actions these companies take based on what they learned in the GED,” said Leo Pradela, Walton Family Foundation programme officer.
SAGE is currently recruiting participant companies for the next GED cohort, scheduled to begin in early 2025.
