Abstract:

The fisheries of Lake Victoria are shared between Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda and provide an immense source of income, employment, food and foreign exchange for East Africa. The lake produces a fish catch of over 800,000 tonnes annually, worth about US $590 million of which US $340 million is generated at the shore and a further US$ 250 million a year is earned in exports from the Nile perch fishery. The lake fisheries support almost two million people through household incomes as well as meeting the fish consumption needs of almost 22 million people in the region. The Lake Victoria Fisheries Organization (LVFO) was formed through a Convention signed in 1994 by the East African Community (EAC) Partner States of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda as a result of the need to manage the fisheries resources of Lake Victoria in a coordinated manner (LVFO 2001). The Organisation is an institution of the EAC whose aim is to harmonise, develop and adopt conservation and management measures for the sustainable utilisation of living resources of Lake Victoria to optimise socio-economic benefits from the basin for the Partner States. Recently, membership of LVFO was extended to Rwanda and Burundi.