It is 8 PM in the evening in Mombasa. Mercy Mganga greets me in the pitch dark as electricity has momentarily stopped in her neighbourhood. After a long day’s work, she now has time to answer my questions.
Every day, “women work 24h”, she smiles through the camera, “they prepare their kids for school, they clean the house, they go to the landing site, they prepare lunch, they fry the fish from 2 to 4 pm and then go to the market from 5 to 10 pm. When they arrive at home, they are supposed to serve dinner to their husband”. Born in Taita Taveta county, Mercy moved to the biggest port city in Kenya and started supplying hotels on the coast with barracuda, king fish, prawns and lobster. From being a leader of her Beach Management Unit (BMU), the national coastal community-based management organisations, she then rose to county-level to finally represent women in fisheries at the national level.
On the other side of Africa, in Mali, a land-locked country, Fatoumata Sirebara Diallo, born in Koulikoro, the second region of the country, moved to Bamako to work as a real estate agent. But she wanted to work for herself, so she switched to what she calls the “rural world”. Her husband supplied her with fish he caught outside of Bamako and she distributed it in the capital. “After two dire years, I could start being autonomous”. The magic potion: a prized fish stock made from the dog fish (hydrocynus), the star fish of the country, and whose recipe her husband taught her.
Later in the week, mid-afternoon, I get hold of Micheline Dion Somplehi, president of the Côte d’Ivoire women fish processor cooperative (USCOFEP-CI). She answers my call between a planning meeting for the inauguration of 500 social housing units show home for women fish processors and an errand to Abidjan university, where she is collaborating with researchers on women’s sanitary safety: “Women pollute the air with the fuel they use to smoke the fish, and they poison themselves”, she explains to me. The network is weak so our conversation keeps being cut.
The artisanal fisheries sector in Kenya, Mali and Côte d’Ivoire
With approximately 14,000 fishermen and 10,000 tonnes of catch per year, Kenyan artisanal fisheries are relatively small and operate in dugout canoes between 0,5 and 2 nautical miles from the coast, using basket traps, beach seine, gill nets and spearguns. BMUs were developed after the failed state-controlled fisheries management as a form of co-management, but there are still many challenges especially the state-level recognition of tenure and access rights. Kenyan artisanal fisheries face the competition from coastal tourism and industrial harbour development that claims ownership on their landing sites.
Mercy Mganga, KENYA
Born in Taita Taveta county, Mercy is a fishmonger and women in fisheries representative at national level. She moved to Mombasa and started working in fisheries to supply hotels on the coast with fish and seafood. She has trained more than 130 younger women in fish processing techniques. Portrait taken in Saly (Senegal) at the World Fisheries Day 2021 by Mamadou Aliou Diallo.
Mali has the largest inland fisheries sector of West Africa, with three main operating areas on the Senegal and Niger rivers and almost 150,000 people whose first activity is fishing. With 20 million inhabitants, this represents a high percentage of the population. National fisheries produce approximately 130,000 tonnes per year, using nets, traps and pots, longlines and spears; while the rest of the fish has to be imported (80,000 tonnes).
Côte d’Ivoire is the country in West Africa that “most welcomes” foreign fishermen. Non-nationals represent 88% of the maritime artisanal fishermen, especially from neighbouring Ghana. With one of the best economies in the UEMOA region, the government prioritized agricultural policy, leaving the fisheries sector behind. This had an impact, for example, on school enrolment and literacy for members of fishing communities. The sector is also in dire straits due to severe resources overexploitation and gaps in its governance structure: it produces approximately 80,000 tonnes of fish but needs to import the rest to meet the demand of 300,000 tonnes per year.
Although in very different contexts, these three women from the African artisanal fisheries face similar issues: the difficulties for women to participate and make their voices heard in professional organisations, the lack of employment and the lack of interest of youth for fisheries, the challenges to access funding to start a business or to innovate and the decreased access to raw materials to process fish due to the diminishing resources and competition with other sectors. The list is long. But this is why the three of them rolled up their sleeves and got down to business.
Innovation to guarantee supply and making ends meet
“Part of our business is to create jobs for our communities”, explains Mercy, who wants women in Kenya to stop being discriminated against men. She has put in place several training sessions to teach younger women how to handle and process fish products. “We buy the fish, train the women how to cut, package and freeze it, and then we sell it in the market”. The profits are then used to buy the materials for the next training. In Kwale county, she has trained more than 130 women who now help her continue supplying fish to hotels and other clients.
Fatoumata explains that, in Mali, “women and youth think fisheries is an activity only for men because it costs money to invest and there is no infrastructure”. She herself started with little, with her own profits from the fish stock: first she grew vegetables without pesticides, then installed fish ponds and then realized that the fish faeces could serve as a fertilizer. “When we grow our aquaculture business, it is very useful to grow vegetables on the side”, she insists. She now sells fingerlings and live fish. “Clients come and fish in the ponds the one they prefer; we sell it by the kilo and smoke it on demand.”
MICHELINE DION SOMPLEHI, Côte D’iVoire
Micheline is a fish processor. She is in charge of the women’s programme at the African Confederation of Artisanal Fisheries Organisations (CAOPA) and also president of the women fish processors cooperative of Côte d’Ivoire (USCOFEP-CI). This portrait was taken during her visit to Mali, by Mamadou Aliou Diallo.
Micheline visited Fatoumata in Mali last year and brought the idea back to Locodjro, the artisanal fisheries landing site near Abidjan. Micheline has been fighting on many fronts for the women to get a more regular supply of fish to process. Artisanal fisheries catches are seasonal, from June to September, and access to the bycatch of industrial vessels that land in Abidjan is complicated because of the abusive practices of middlemen. Women also struggle to buy big quantities due to lack of funds but also because they have little to no access to refrigeration. She sees this coupling of artisanal fish farming with above-ground market gardening as an opportunity to complement the supply of raw materials.
After her visit to Bamako, Micheline rented from the village authorities a 1200 sq. meter piece of land. Half of it has been filled with sacks of soil where she and her colleagues planted seedlings of tomatoes, chili, onions, carrots, eggplants (see the banner photo). In a few weeks only, they were already selling tomatoes and eggplants. “Part of the harvest is accessible to the women of the cooperative for a lower price and the surplus is sold on the market.” For example, from a ton of tomatoes, 60% was sold to the women and the rest on the market. The profits so far only allow them to pay for the agricultural technician and his assistant who are on site full-time. “We have developed a project for the second half of the land, where we would like to install our fish ponds, and we hope to secure funds from a donor”. They still need a solar water pump, the materials to build the fish ponds, funds to buy fingerlings and fish feed. This pilot project aims to be used to train women so that the ideas can be extended to all the Union's cooperatives throughout the country so that they can become more resilient. It will help them when landings are scarce.
In Kenya, continuous supply is easier; post-harvest business has developed thanks to the bycatch landed by industrial vessels. Mercy tells me that “the BMU advocated to the government to access this bycatch.” The BMU stores it and sells small fish to the women fish processors while it keeps bigger fish to be cut into smaller pieces. Sharks, landed by Asian fleets after being finned, is one of their most valued products due to its high demand. “We dry and salt it first and then we cook it by first dipping it into water, rinsing it and frying it,” she explains as she promises me a taste when I visit.
Off-ground market gardening
Photos: Mercy Mganga.
With little catches from the artisanal fisheries sector, small-scale aquaculture is very common in Kenya and has become a business for export, especially for Asian clients. In 2017, Mercy introduced crab farming in her BMU after importing crab for years from Tanzania: “When we catch crab that is too small to be sold, we keep it and we fatten it before we export it”. There are other types of farming for exports, such as octopus or oyster, but also for the national market, such as catfish and tilapia.
“Fish farming does not take time: you feed the fish in the morning and then you continue your other activities.” Some fish cages are offshore, some ponds are near the landing site, so it is easy for the women to continue their former activities as well. Yet also here, there are challenges: In many of the farms, “they usually feed the fish and other animals with fish leftover. It is not legal, but women cannot afford fishmeal.” A FAO report recently denounced that most of fishmeal produced in Africa is exported to China and Turkey and that African fish farmers have to resort to “local alternatives of low performance.”
Funding challenges and a vision for the future
The lack of funds it a main issue for women if they are trying to invest in a new business. Micheline has been facing this for months, as she tries to fund her fish ponds. “Women have very little financial support”, she complains. It is a tall order to obtain stable financing: “Banks know we are from the fisheries sector and they refuse to give us credit”. Fatoumata precises: “Fish is a perishable commodity, and can’t be a guarantee for banks.”
FATOUMATA SIREBARA DIALLO, MALI
Born in Koulikoro, the second region of the country, Mrs. Sirebara was first a real estate agent for 12 years before moving to growing vegetables without pesticides and coupling it with small-scale aquaculture. Portrait taken at the World Fisheries Day 2021 in Saly (Senegal) by Mamadou Aliou Diallo.
“But I want to bring women and youth to small-scale aquaculture still”. Fatoumata explains that in Mali there are many young graduates without employment. “But all these people need to eat!” she exclaims. This ever-optimist lady in fisheries employs some young people on her site, but has also trained many others. “My ambition is to create awareness about the value of fish, to add value: food security, nutrition value, financial value.”
In Abidjan, the local women cooperative started mobilising to employ youth on the landing site, after the untimely death of a young woman in their community who took the perilous route on the Mediterranean highlighted the need to give a future locally to the young people from the community. Today, more than 400 young men and women are offloading catches from the boats, cleaning and preparing the fish, storing it in the fridges and cool boxes.
Mercy is currently campaigning to be elected as a women representative for 5 additional years. “And after that, well-deserved rest?” I ask jokingly. But these relentless women have still many more ideas, and not enough hours in the day to develop them. For example, as they are aware that sustainable fisheries and sustainable food systems depend on a healthy environment, Kenyan women and their children collect plastic bottles from the sea and use them to plant mangrove seedlings, which they then sell to the Community Forest Association for a modest sum. This offers yet another alternative livelihood.
Micheline’s organisation, USCOFEP-CI, recently signed an agreement with an Ivorian environmental organisation, Conservation des Espèces Marines, which headed efforts to acquire a refrigerating equipment for women fish processors in Grand Béréby, an area rich in fish 300 km West from Abidjan.
Yes, these three women continue their fight to make the voice of women in artisanal fisheries heard in Africa and to promote better living and working conditions. They will try any means possible, and as Fatoumata says, “if we fall down, we get up again.”
Banner photo: Half of the 1200 sq metres are filled with sacks where the women cooperative of fish processors of Abidjan are doing their above-ground market gardening. Courtesy of USCOFEP-CI.
West Africa has pioneered several decades of artisanal fisheries management reform. Yet there are still major obstacles to co-management: a lack of political will reflected in low budgetary allocations; inadequate and poorly targeted support for fisher organizations; poorly defined roles and responsibilities of fishers in co-management; lack of enforcement of inshore exclusive zones; and inadequate defense of human rights and particularly the important role of women.