In 2018, WorldFish made notable progress toward our ambition to position fish firmly at the heart of discourse, policy and practice currently shaping the global thinking on transforming food systems, paying closer attention to nutrition and healthier diets and informing the path toward an inclusive and sustainable blue economy. Our achievements in 2018 are highlighted in this annual report.
This short video story highlights the findings of WorldFish leading researcher Philippa Cohen’s paper onSecuring a just space for small scale fisheries in the blue economy, published at the Frontiers journal in April 2019.
The Improving Food Security and Livelihoods of Poor Farming Households (IFSL) project aims to assist 180,000 smallholder farmers in Bangladesh by improving access to appropriate technical advice and affordable inputs as well as business and marketing support. The project builds on the proven concept of Local Service Providers (LSPs). LSPs are lead farmers who live in communities close to farmers and are selected by target communities and other stakeholders to become their advisors and provide marketing support. Through the project, WorldFish promotes improved fish and shrimp farming techniques as well as mixed cropping systems involving LSPs and farmers groups. It also promotes the adoption of improved fish and shrimp farming techniques, which builds on its ongoing R&D work.
Related Publications
This booklet presents stories of women fish retailers in the governorates of Kafr El-Sheikh (Lower Egypt) and Fayoum (Upper Egypt). The livelihoods of these women retailers were supported by several market interventions implemented under the Sustainable Transformation of Egypt’s Aquaculture Market System (STREAMS) project. The project is funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and led by WorldFish through the CGIAR Research Program on Fish Agri-Food Systems (FISH), in cooperation with CARE International Egypt.
Poverty alleviation and resource governance are inextricably related. Mainstream resource management has been typically criticized by social scientists for the inherent power imbalances between fishery managers and small-scale fishing communities. Yet, while a number of mechanisms of collective action to address these power imbalances have been developed, they remain undertheorized.
The important contribution of fi sheries to human well-being is frequently underestimated. This report highlights that contribution. The report focuses on small-scale fi sheries and developing countries because the livelihoods of 90 percent of the 120 million employed in fi sheries are in the small-scale fi sheries, and almost all of those workers, 97 percent, live in developing countries. Many small-scale fi shing communities have high levels of poverty, and poverty reduction is a core focus of the contributing partners to the report.
Aquaculture is widely held to contribute to poverty reduction and food security in the Global South, but robust evidence is limited. Using nationally representative data from Bangladesh, this study analyses changes in fish consumption from 2000 to 2010. Rapid expansion of commercial aquaculture pegged down fish prices, resulting in increased fish consumption by extreme poor and moderate poor consumers and those in rural areas. These outcomes are closely linked to the pro-poor nature of national economic growth during this period.
Poor rural consumers benefit from Egypt’s aquaculture sector through access to small and medium-sized farmed tilapia sold by informal fish retailers, many of whom are women. In fact, informal fish retail is the main, if not only, segment of the farmed fish value chain where women are found. This report aims to inform current and future strategies to improve conditions in informal fish retail by understanding in more depth the similarities and differences in employment quality and outcomes across different fish retailers.
Analysis from research and practice in Africa shows that fishing communities are hardly reached by HIV-related services, education, and business services, partly because of the efforts and costs involved and a lack of good practice in reaching out to these often remote areas. At the same time, fish traders, especially women, travel regularly to remote fishing camps to purchase fish. Although female fish traders may be exposed to HIV, violence and abuse in their interactions and relationships with fishermen, economic necessity keeps them in this trade.
