US280.000 project to support alternative livelihoods for L. Victoria fishing communities

By George Mangula

The Food and   Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), together with the Ministry   of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF) have launched a Technical Cooperation Project to support women and youth groups in fishing communities around Lake Victoria.

The pilot project, dubbed Integrated Livelihood Support to Fishing Communities around Lake Victoria will   benefit groups of women and youths in rural poor fishing communities in Kalangala, Kalungu and Masaka districts, with an aim of empowering them to   diversify their income sources in fishing and fishing–related activities.

The two-year Project, worth US$ 277 000 (about One billion Shillings), will provide training and inputs to help beneficiaries  manage economically   viable and sustainable interventions, including but not   limited to aquaculture and value addition options for capture fisheries.

The project comes on the heels of MAAIF’s recognition of the enormous challenges affecting fishing dependent communities, especially women and youth. It was said the latter groups have remained marginalized, poor and with limited sustainable sources of income because of overfishing, decline in fish stocks, illegal fishing, poor fish handling facilities and increased post-harvest losses. Unfavorably high competition   for fishing grounds, brought about by overcapitalization of fishing has also   contributed to this dire situation.

To address some of these challenges, the   Government of Uganda instituted management reforms aimed at boosting fish   stocks. The reforms, which include regulating the number of fishing vessels   and gears, instituting restrictive license fees and intensified monitoring,   control and surveillance of fisheries activities, have greatly limited access   to fisheries resources and facilitated exclusion of some members of the   community from fisheries.

While these stock recovery strategies are   important and have yielded positive results, the Minister for Agriculture Vincent Ssempijja, said that   some of the reforms can lead to increased loss of livelihoods among the fishing communities in the most-affected districts of Mayuge, Namayingo, Masaka and Kalangala.

The project will support interventions   aimed at promoting legal fishing methods and gears to vulnerable groups,   providing non-fishing livelihood options, efficient post-harvest handling and value addition technologies, economic empowerment of women and youth through SACCOs, as well as building the capacity of the beneficiaries to sustain the benefits.

The FAO Country Representative, Antonio Querido, said project beneficiary communities will be supported to boost their incomes through additional streams resulting from alternative livelihood options that are at the same time expected to reduce pressure on capture fisheries resources.

“It is our sincere hope that this project will contribute to addressing inadequate diversification of livelihood options among the rural poor fishing communities, especially women and youth, as well as improving the resilience of livelihoods to threats and crises,” Querido said.

The fisheries sub-sector contributes about   12 and 3 percent to Uganda’s agricultural and national incomes respectively, demonstrating its huge potential to provide employment, income and food   security. Overall, the sub-sector contributes to the livelihood of nearly 5.3 million people while about one million people are engaged in capture fisheries, with about half a million people are engaged in aquaculture.

About 5,000 people are employed in fish industrial processing. Over 1.2 million people are directly dependent on the fisheries sub-sector as their   main source of household income. Furthermore, fish forms an important part of diets, being a major source of critically required animal protein for about one million Ugandans. Through this intervention therefore, FAO and MAAIF will   champion responsible and sustainable fishing while creating opportunities for women and youth in fishing communities to diversity incomes from fish-related activities.