Management of Shared Inland Fisheries
Mukasa,Kirema|Ogutu-Ohwayo, R. / 2006

Africa has many large lakes most of which are shared between more than one country. One of them, Lake Victoria (68,000 km2) is shared between three East African Community (EAC) Partner States with 6% of the lake in Kenya, 43% in Uganda and 51% in Tanzania. The lake has a very lucrative fishery yielding 750,000m.t of fish valued at US$ 400 million annually. Fish exports from the lake earn Partner States US$ 250 million annually, and about 3 million out of 30 million people in the lake basin depend on the lake fisheries directly or indirectly for their livelihood. Management of the fisheries of Lake Victoria poses a challenge partly because management of the fisheries is by national governments under national jurisdictions. How then have the Partner States managed to harmoniously exploit the fisheries of the lake under multiple jurisdictions? The Partner States established a regional institution, the Lake Victoria Fisheries Organization (LVFO) to harmonize national measures, and to develop and adopt conservation and management measures for sustainable utilization of the fisheries. National measures are harmonized into regional measures and agreed upon through the structures from the national village level to a Ministerial regional level. The LVFO then developed programs and formed Working Groups (WGs) at national and regional levels through which different activities are implemented. Through these efforts, the Partner States have put in place similar measures to control access to the fishery through licensing, limiting