Nile Perch Export and Welfare around Lake Victoria- Has the boom in exports been positive for welfare?

Abstract

Alarming voices claim that the increased revenues from the Nile Perch industry in Lake Victoria fail to benefit the local population. This paper aims to investigate the evolution of welfare and income inequality alongside the expansion of the Nile Perch export industry in the regions of Mwanza and Mara, Tanzania, during the past 20 years. We find evidence of a decreased poverty and convergence between rural and urban areas in the regions. However our results also indicate increased income inequality with the fishing villages being especially poor compared to the region. Hence the revenues from the increased exports seem to have benefitted the Lake Victoria region as a whole but failed to benefit the people directly involved in the fishing industry. The unequal distribution of income between different actors is less apparent in the case of the Nile Perch sector as opposed to other fish sectors. This fact suggests that the prevailing poverty in the fishing communities is not mainly caused by the exports but rather due to an unequal organization of the fish industry in general.