Management Challenges of Freshwater Fisheries in Africa

Many African countries are among the poorest in the world and as a result, the development objective of most African countries is to reduce or even eradicate poverty through modernising agricultural production including fisheries. In countries around Lake Victoria, fisheries contribute 3-5% of GDP. Fisheries also contribute significantly to export earnings of a number of African countries. On a global scale, the values of lakes are similar. However, the relative importance of the values (e.g. fisheries, recreation, water abstraction) varies from one region to another. In Uganda, fish exports are among the two most important export commodities. The inland fisheries production grew from 250,000t in 1950 to 2,000,000t by 1999 (Geheb & Sarch, 2002) representing about 50% of total catches from Africa (FAO, 2000). The other avenues of Agricultural production are crop agriculture, livestock and forestry.