4 There is a gender division of labour in the organization of artisanal fishing in the country.
Men naturally undertake fish harvesting while women are key in the offshore post harvest activities including processing, storage and trade. Within the fishing communities, whole
households undertake one form of activity or the other. While over 150,000 fishers are directly engaged in marine capture fisheries in the country, it is estimated countrywide that
between 1.5 million and 2 million people in households are also engaged in the artisanal marine fishing industry. In addition to such fishing households about 500,000 other people
get employed in the processing, trade, canoe building, packaging and transport industry all ancillary to the artisanal marine fishing industry Bank of Ghana, 2008; Mensah et al., 2006.
Fishery-related livelihoods are vulnerable for a variety of reasons. Fish stocks are migratory, the seas provide a hostile environment and the product is perishable. Moreover fisheries are
vulnerable to overexploitation of the resource. Fish stocks may have to contend with external shocks and trends that relate to environmental degradation and climate change. Marine fish is
a naturally occurring common pool resource with open access. An influential narrative on the degradation or depletion of such commonly held resources has centred on Hardin’s ‘the
tragedy of the commons’ Hardin, 1968. Common pool resources with open access become degraded or over utilized because a great part of the cost of overutilization by individual
users is passed on to other users. Individuals thus would increase the utility of an open access resource in so far as they do not bear the full cost of overutilization and in the face of no
social control mechanism. Many countries have tried to put in place institutions and management systems in the fisheries sector that deal with the state and traditional
arrangements. In the case of marine fishing in Ghana, there is an absence of a well defined property rights and thus access is highly unregulated. It is the recognition of such
overexploitation of marine fisheries that the Government of Ghana in its Medium-Term Agricultural Development Strategy MTADS discussed with the World Bank, sought to
develop resource management plans for the fisheries sector and facilitate a regulatory framework for the management plans World Bank, 2003.
This document reports on the governance system and issues that relate to artisanal fisheries along the western coast of Ghana. In particular it addresses why efforts by the state to
strengthen community based fisheries management to protect the resource and ensure sustainability of the industry failed.
1.2 Governance in fisheries
There has been an apparent and widespread lack of success over the past half century to manage the exploitation of common pool resources in a sustainable manner. Within the
fisheries sector, while governments are losing out on the potential benefits, fishing communities recognize the unsustainable fish resources as a threat to their livelihoods. There
has been need therefore to better understand the factors that affect fisheries and coastal management performance and to develop new and alternative approaches to the challenges
and opportunities presented. Fisheries and coastal governance is the sum of the legal, social, economic and political arrangements used to manage fisheries. It has international, national
and local dimensions and includes legally binding rules as well as customary social arrangements FAO, 2001. It also involves the establishment of institutions, policies and
processes to effectively manage fisheries by the state, market and civil society organizations. While institutions are the sets of rules and arrangements as well as the organizations that
develop and implement these rules, policies define courses of action of the stakeholders involved MRAG, 2005.
Global reviews of the current state of fish stocks indicate that prevailing systems of fisheries governance have been largely ineffective at controlling access to fishery resources to ensure
5 their sustainability IDDRA, 2005. The failure of centralized arrangement for small scale
fisheries and or the economically driven reforms and constraints have increased the interest in the potential of fisheries co-management. Co-management results in the sharing of
responsibility and authority for management between resource users, other stakeholders and government. It improves compliance to fisheries regulations by participating stakeholders,
reduces the costs of data collection, monitoring and evaluation as well as leads to the empowerment of local communities. Furthermore, co-management provides more locally
relevant management plans and assists in conflict management between stakeholders Arthur, 2005. Co-management arrangements depend on local contexts but their success depends on
the creation of an enabling environment that supports local management planning as well as ensuring that the rights of stakeholders to participate and assume responsibility is legitimized.
Arthur 2005 presents some conditions for success in fisheries co-management. These include:
• Specification of broad national sectoral objectives
• Creating an enabling environment through policies and legislation
• Creating nested governance structures – levels of enforcement, planning and co-
ordination that takes into account traditional local institutions with a remit covering fisheries management.
• Reducing stakeholder vulnerability through livelihood diversification. This makes
stakeholder groups feel that they are able to consider the sustainability of the fishery and engage in co-management.
• Provision of training, communication, conflict resolution and extension services to
support co-management.
A community-based management of small scale fisheries involves a decentralization of decision making to the extent that management decisions are made locally. Here,
management is considered as a partnership arrangement between government and other stakeholders into which existing informal and customary management systems may have to
be integrated. The argument here is that those that are dependent on the fishery have the greatest interest in ensuring its sustainability of the resource system. These also have
extensive local knowledge and therefore are best placed to make management decisions. It is important that both authority and responsibility should be devolved to co-managing
stakeholders. Any successful co-management arrangement should be guided by the following principles Arthur, 2005:
Ensuring meaningful participation in the management process. The challenges here are the identification and involvement of stakeholder groups and the commitment to provide the
resources to support participation develop capacity and empower the groups.
• Creating transparency of information and options available, the management
decisions taken and the basis on which such key decisions have been taken. This contributes to legitimacy and acceptance of decisions and therefore compliance.
• Ensuring accountability. Representatives of stakeholder groups should be legitimate
and communicate the views of groups they represent. While local stakeholders should be accountable to government, the latter should also be accountable to the local
stakeholders.
• Developing management capability of local stakeholders to contribute to decision
making and take on management roles and responsibilities. This will involve financial resources, training and coordination.
6 •
1.3 Terms of Reference
