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Poverty and Small-scale Fisheries in West Africa pp 83–102Cite as

The Challenge of Managing Small-scale Fisheries with Reference to Poverty Alleviation

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Abstract

The objective of this paper is to address the following question: “what are the challenges of managing fisheries with reference to poverty alleviation within the specific context of West African small-scale fisheries?”. Raising such a question supposes three strong assumptions. One, that poverty, although it is a multidimensional, inter-sectoral, problem, has also some specific dimensions attached to the nature of the activity/sector considered here, in other words, that some element/dimension of poverty that affects fishing communities is actually related to the fishing activity itself. Two, -as a consequence of the first assumption- that an intrasectoral approach to poverty alleviation is possible. These first two assumptions do not deny or undervalue the fundamental lessons learnt over the last two decades and the subsequent improvements that have been made in understanding the multi-dimensional and complex nature of poverty. Rather the present paper attempts to enrich this new understanding with some additional elements based on our experience of rural poverty within the specific case of fisheries sector. Three, we also assume that there is a strong political willingness to shift poverty reduction (from its current non-existence) to a top-priority objective in the fishery management agenda. Finally, note that in its arguments, this paper follows directly Béné’s analysis of poverty in fishery (Chapter 5) in this volume. In this respect, the term ‘entitlement’ is understood and used in this paper as synonymous of ‘institution-governed access to’. An ‘entitilement failure’, therefore, refers to the absence or denying of access (to a resource, service, or commodity) imposed by institutions (voluntarily) or resulting from institutional mis-functioning (involuntarily). An example of (voluntarily) entitlement failure in a fishery would be the institutionalised (i.e. legitimised by the society) denial of access to fishing grounds faced by the members of a community or group, based on ethnic or religious grounds.

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Authors
  1. Christophe Béné
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  2. Elizabeth Bennett
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  3. Arthur Neiland
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for the Economics and Management of Aquatic Resources (CEMARE), Department of Economics, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK

    Arthur E. Neiland  & Christophe Béné  & 

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Béné, C., Bennett, E., Neiland, A. (2004). The Challenge of Managing Small-scale Fisheries with Reference to Poverty Alleviation. In: Neiland, A.E., Béné, C. (eds) Poverty and Small-scale Fisheries in West Africa. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2736-5_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2736-5_6

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