A review of potential sources of revenue for sustaining fisheries co-management activities in the southern Lake Malawi, Mangochi district

Abstract

This article seeks to review and identify potential sources of funds for implementation of planned activities within a fisheries co-management arrangement in the southern Lake Malawi, Mangochi District. In this review, we use secondary sources on fisheries co-management at both national and international levels. With adoption of the co-management or participatory fisheries management as it is alternatively called in Malawi, consideration of sustainable financing mechanisms is essential for implementation of planned activities by the local fisheries management authorities and beach village committees within a decentralization framework. Potential revenue sources include development of a fisheries fund and establishment of a benefit sharing mechanism with reference to a district user fee. Other sources include fees charged for conducting fisheries research on the lake, membership fee for joining beach village committees, levies on fish marketing and fees charged for use of facilities especially jetties, store rooms and fish processing facilities on a beach. The revenue collection is recommended as one of the incentives for co-management partners to ensure implementation of activities like law enforcement, licensing, training, community outreach services and research. We recommend that the legal provisions on the establishment of a fisheries fund and revenue sharing be implemented to ensure availability of funds for the fisheries sector. In addition, the existing by-laws with outlined financing mechanisms should be approved by the appropriate authorities.

Keywords:

• decentralization
• financing mechanism
• sustainability

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge support from the Aquatic Ecosystem Health and Management Society (AEHMS) for organising the 8^th GLOW Conference in Malawi from 24–26 March, 2015. In particular, we are indebted to Mohiuddin Munawar, Jennifer Lorimer and Lisa Elder for their efforts that made a successful conference possible and for subsequent publication of the papers presented. Data used in this article were sourced from Mangochi Fisheries Office, hence we are grateful to all data collectors, extension workers and licensing officers for their kind positive response to make available the data for our analysis.