Poverty and Small-scale Fisheries in West Africa

This book is one of the first attempts to examine the issue of poverty in small-scale fisheries from a multi-disciplinary perspective. It represents a state-of-the-art collation and synthesis of the experience of nineteen international experts in fisheries management, planning, economics and other social sciences, including several senior officers form the Department of Fisheries of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (UN-FAO). The authors have benefited from the experiences and comments of colleagues from twenty-five African countries participating in the First International Workshop on "Small-scale fisheries, poverty and the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries" organized by FAO and the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID). The book offers a new perspective on the problem of poverty in small-scale fisheries, introducing innovative concepts and ideas and drawing upon recent knowledge generated by in-depth empirical case studies and makes explicit connections with the Sustainable Livelihood Approach and the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries - two prominent frameworks which are recognized, applied and promoted internationally by scholars, practitioners and donor agencies in their work on fisheries development. As well as offering important insights into the problem of poverty in small-scale fisheries and representing a contribution to the work of the `Sustainable Fisheries Livelihood Programme (SFLP)' in West Africa the book also represents a key source of up-to-date information and reference material for anybody interested or working in the fields of poverty and fisheries management in Developing Countries.