Inland Fisheries, Poverty, and Rural Livelihoods in the Lake Chad Basin

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to describe the livelihoods of the rural populations of the Lake Chad Basin area (Sub-Saharan Africa), and in particular to assess the role of inland fishing activity in these livelihoods. For this purpose, a combination of activity and wealth ranking exercises was carried out in 64 villages of the Basin, completed by a series of comparative analyses of the ethnic composition, accessibility to fishing grounds and fishing gear ownership across the different socioeconomic strata of the populations. The analysis shows that for the entire area, households, irrespective of their wealth levels, still rely to a very large extent on subsistence-based economy where the three major activities (fishing, farming, and herding) are closely integrated. With respect to fishing activity the survey demonstrates the central role of this activity (in terms of income, labor, and food supply) for all wealth groups. But the analysis also reveals that there is no one-to-one relationship between the contribution of fishing activity and the wealth (or poverty) level of the households. In particular the analysis suggests that well-known adages such as “the fishermen are the poorest of the poor” or “the fishery is the activity of last resort” do not reflect the complexity of the real situation.