Inland fisheries make substantial contributions to food security and livelihoods locally, regionally, and globally but their conservation and management have been largely overlooked by policy makers. In an effort to remedy this limited recognition, a cross-sectoral community of scientists, practitioners, and policy makers from around the world convened a high-level meeting in 2015 at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations headquarters in Rome, Italy to develop recommendations for sustainable inland fisheries management. This meeting resulted in the production of the Rome Declaration, outlining ten key steps needed to achieve responsible inland fisheries. When the Ten Steps were conceived, they were framed in a global context because inland fisheries around the world face similar
Aquatic foods are critical for food and nutrition security in Malawi, but it is unclear which populations benefit from different aquatic foods and what factors shape food access. Spatial analysis of food flows across value chains from Lake Malawi to domestic consumers shows that usipa (Engraulicypris sardella) reaches more consumers than chambo (Oreochromis karongae) across all Malawi districts, particularly rural populations. Higher number of markets, nutrient content, and overall supply coupled with lower retail prices and volumes make usipa more accessible to consumers than chambo. Spatial analysis of food flows can guide policymakers towards supporting fisheries that reach vulnerable populations and designing interventions that enhance physical and economic access to fish.
Poverty and food insecurity persist in sub-Saharan Africa. We conducted a secondary analysis of nationally representative data from three sub-Saharan Africa countries (Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda) to investigate how both proximity to and engagement with small-scale fisheries are associated with household poverty and food insecurity. Results from the analysis suggest that households engaged in small-scale fisheries were 9 percentage points less likely to be poor than households engaged only in agriculture. Households living in proximity to small-scale fisheries (average distance 2.7 km) were 12.6 percentage points more likely to achieve adequate food security and were 15 percentage points less likely to be income poor, compared to the most distant households. Households distant from fishing grounds (>5 km) were 1.5 times more likely to consume dried fish compared to households living close. Conserving the flow of benefits from small-scale fisheries is important for meeting the Sustainable Development Goals in the region.
Inland small-scale fisheries provide important ecosystem services in sub-Saharan Africa as a source of nutritious food to over 200 million people and offer avenues for countries to attain Sustainable Development Goal 2. However, there is a dearth of knowledge on the pathways of fish to food security, especially in the case of inland small-scale fisheries, which are often underrepresented in research and policy discussions. We review the literature from 2010 to the present to assess how fish food systems, specifically those associated with inland small-scale fisheries in sub-Saharan Africa, relate to the four pillars of food security: availability, access, utilization, and stability, as well as women's empowerment. We offer an assessment of the extent to which each of these pillars of food security has been thoroughly conceptualized and investigated in the literature, identifying important avenues for future research. Overfishing, post-harvest losses, and trade influences drive fish availability in many contexts. Income benefits from participating in small-scale fisheries were important for attaining access to fish for food security and other important livelihood outcomes. Few studies addressed utilization and stability compared to availability and access pillars. Further, few studies examined how gender shapes outcomes of women's empowerment. The results lead to the proposed research agenda of focusing on all pillars of food security that can enhance the sustainable contribution of inland small-scale fisheries to food security.
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