Socially Constructed Scarcity on Lake Victoria, Tanzania
Table of Contents:
1. Introduction…………………………………………………………………... 2
2. Literature Review. Development Theory.
The Concept of Socially Constructed Scarcity……………………………….. 4
3. The Introduction of the Nile Perch: First Wave of Socially Constructing
Scarcity……………………………………………………………………….16
4. Export Promotion: Second Wave of Socially Constructing Scarcity…………24
5. Consequences on the Local Communities…………………………………...32
6. Aid Agency: Perpetuating Scarcity………………………………………….40
7. The Big Picture………………………………………………………………46
8. Conclusions………………………………………………………………….54
9. Bibliography…………………………………………………………………61
1
1. Introduction
Many times, when we talk about poverty and starvation, we talk about them as
caused by the physical scarcity of natural resources, which are not sufficient to meet
the needs of the people, especially given the constant increase in population at the
global level. In the case of the riparian communities on Lake Victoria in Tanzania,
extreme poverty and starvation are usually attributed to the lack of sufficient
resources in the country, as Tanzania is one of the poorest states in the world.
However, these people live next to a lake that has been a satisfactory source of
nutrition for centuries, and it is only in the last half of century that the resources it
yields have started being considered scarce.
In this thesis, I will oppose to this way of viewing scarcity one that is closer to
Amartya Sen’s proposal of shifting the discussion of scarcity from emphasizing a
general absence of resources for the growing world population (a Malthusian type of
argument), to focusing on the distribution of these resources. To use Sen’s words,
“starvation is the characteristic of some people not having enough food to eat, it is not
the characteristic of there not being enough food to eat.”1
This thesis will show that the scarcity of resources on Lake Victoria is not
physical, but rather that it has been socially constructed through specific human
interventions. The three main steps in this process are: the introduction of the Nile
perch by the British colonists; the massive promotion of export activities by the
Tanzanian post-colonial governments, as a response to both internal determinants and
the economic conditionalities imposed on the country through the Structural
Adjustment Plans of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund; and finally,
the activities of the aid agencies in the area, aimed at upgrading artisanal fishing to
1
Amartya Sen, Poverty and Famines: an Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1991): 1.
2
more technological procedures. Scarcity on the shores of the lake is manifested at two
levels: as regards the fish resources currently available for extraction, and as regards
the incomes of the riparian population and food security in the region.
The process of social construction of scarcity was possible because of the
ideological domination of economist thinking and liberal economics, which informed
the colonial decision to introduce the Nile perch in order to increase the yields of the
lake, the export-oriented national economic strategies of Tanzania, and the
development strategies promoted by the international financial institutions and aid
agencies. Economist thinking relies on the assumption that human behavior is and
should be driven by the profit motive. This manner of thinking gradually gave birth to
a particular understanding of political economy (currently deemed neo-liberal
economics), according to which national economies should be focused on gaining
from international trade, through opening up to the competition of world markets and
promoting export activities. Such economic thinking was further supported by a
certain vision of development in the Third World, which argued for the modernization
of these countries at all costs. This means that Third World countries deemed
underdeveloped should be brought to the level of economic and technological
development of the Western world through the implementation of specific external
prescriptions.
The domination of this type of economist thinking is associated with the
commodification of nature: what were considered to be the common assets of the
community have become material resources for capitalist activities. The consequence
of this re-conceptualization of nature is that the rush for profit leads to the overexploitation of natural resources, which, in the absence of external intervention, could
have remained self-sustainable.
3
The analysis in this thesis will bring together two different understandings of
“socially constructed scarcity.” On the one hand, I will refer to the social construction
of scarcity as the sum of specific interventions by actors that led to the creation of
scarcity in the region. This reading falls in line with dependency school/ neo-Marxist
theories arguing that actors from the core take advantage of the periphery, and
increase their own well-being at the cost of creating or aggravating scarcity in the
Third World.
On the other hand, the social construction of scarcity means the
creation and dissemination of a specific understanding of scarcity, as natural and
unavoidable in a world of limited resources and unlimited human wants. This
interpretation matches constructivist and post-modernist theories explaining how the
paradigms of thought that we use can determine and even impose specific behaviors.
Showing that, in the case of Lake Victoria, scarcity has been socially
constructed is essential for the process of solving the problem of scarcity. Such a
solution requires the re-conceptualization of the resources of the lake as a common
good that should belong to the local community, linked to the acknowledgement of
the basic right of all human beings to adequate food and water.
2. Literature Review. Development Theory. Socially Constructed Scarcity.
The topic discussed in this paper belongs to the larger body of literature on
development in the Third World. This type of literature is closely connected to the
practice of development, as the national governments and the international
organizations rely heavily on advice coming from the academic and scientific
communities in constructing their policy recommendations.
The main contention within development studies takes place between the
modernization school, dominated by what Hirschman would call the monoeconomics
and mutual benefit claims, and the neo-Marxist school, which rejects both these
4
claims.2 The modernization school (a central name here is Rostow) is usually
associated with a liberal view on economics (classical liberal and neo-liberal
economics), and states that all developing countries have to go through the same
development process as the countries of North America and Western Europe.
According to this body of literature, the African states, including Tanzania, should
closely obey to the recommendations of such international bodies as the International
Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which will provide them with the most
appropriate general guidelines on how to proceed on the route towards economic
growth.
Development through modernization usually entails such measures as
opening up the economy to international trade, welcoming foreign investors, and
promoting exports, combined with a retreat of the state from the economic sphere as a
part of a general trend towards the deregulation and the privatization of this sector
(with the neo-liberals, there is more acknowledgement for the important role of the
state, but generally governmental intervention is related to the creation of the proper
conditions for the smooth functioning of the market).
The opposing trend in development studies is the dependency school (mainly
developed by Latin-American authors starting with Raoul Prebisch), which argues
that the rich countries are able to enjoy such a high degree of development because
they are taking advantage of their position within the world economic system at the
expense of the poorer countries. Because of this, it is unlikely that the underdeveloped
countries will be allowed to (the question of whether they should do so is left aside for
now) follow the same path towards development.
2
Albert O. Hirschman, Essays in Trespassing Economics to Politics and Beyond, Chapter 1
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). As Hirschman explains, the monoeconomics claim
means that the different economies in the world function according to the same principles and can
evolve according to similar patterns; the mutual benefit claim means that both the core and the
periphery will benefit from the economic interconnections between them.
5
One of the main authors belonging to this body of literature is Immanuel
Wallerstein, the creator of the world-systems theory.3 Wallerstein can be easily
affiliated with the dependency school, given that one of his main goals is to deny the
possibility that the underdeveloped states will be able to pursue the same development
path as the rich ones. This is not possible, Wallerstein argues, because, at the
formation of the current world economic system (world capitalism, which has been in
place since the 16th century, but under its current form, of consolidated industrial
capitalism, only since the 19th century), certain countries were forced into a
peripheral position which they now find difficult to alter. Once these countries were
pushed into a peripheral role, they started being taken advantage of by the core
countries, which had an interest in perpetuating this structure of the international
system. This does not mean, however, that it is impossible for these countries to
escape their peripheral status, but this is not as easy as the modernization theorists
claim, nor is there a single route that they can follow in order to improve their
condition.
Other authors writing along the lines of Wallerstein are Cardoso and Faletto,4
whose main question is whether it is possible for a country that is dependent in the
international system (a former colony, for example, that is now finding itself in the
position of being dependent on foreign aid or investment, and which has to adhere to
the conditional ties imposed by the international organizations) to experience
development with dependency. Other theorists were conditioning development on the
achievement of self-reliance firstly, but Cardoso and Faletto are breaking away from
3
I.M. Wallerstein, The Capitalist World Economy: Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1979).
4
F.H. Cardoso and E. Faletto, Dependency and Development in Latin America (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1979).
6
this line of thought, asserting that it is important for each country to find its own path
to development, given the specific determinations to which it is subjected.
Wallerstein, Cardoso and Faletto propose strategies for underdeveloped
countries to improve their status in the world economy. Neither of these authors looks
at the countries as black boxes, acting in a unified manner (as the modernization
theorists do). While Wallerstein rejects the whole idea of looking at the state as a unit
of analysis, Cardoso and Faletto insist that in order to evaluate the direction of
development of a certain state, we have to pay attention to cues coming from both the
international environment and domestic actors. The latter authors stress the idea of
taking a more sociological perspective, of paying attention to the particularities of a
country in terms of its history and political organization, for instance.
Although the modernization school has been almost completely dismissed
within development theory, it remains dominant in the thinking of politicians. The
dependency school has found appeal with decision-makers in the Second and Third
World. Especially leaders from Latin American states are becoming more and more
vocal in invoking these types of arguments. However, the thinking of decision-makers
in Europe and North America is still dominated to a large extent by the modernization
school, which they promote in the international organizations dealing with the
development of the Third World (the International Monetary Fund IMF, the World
Bank WB) and with the functioning of the international economy (the World Trade
Organization WTO).
The advocates of dependency theory have become stronger though, and some
of their arguments are starting to leave their mark in the new tendencies of
reformation of some of these organizations. An important example is the attempt of
the World Bank to answer the strong criticisms against its recommendations, coming
7
from both outside and inside the organization.5 The new trend within the WB is to
recommend a mix of economic and political reforms, aimed at strengthening the local
institutions in order to sustain the pressures of opening up the economy. The WB is
also trying to find more particularized and context-based solutions to the local
problems. The new claim of the WB is that it is working together with the local civil
society and using local knowledge when designing and implementing development
strategies.
This shift in the WB can also be read as an attempt to incorporate the most
recent trend in development thought, namely “alternative development.” For the
advocates of alternative development, the most important elements to consider are the
provision of basic human rights and the achievement of sustainable development
(environmental care being a central component of this). While the mainstream
modernization theory sets economic growth as the ultimate end, to be reached even at
the expense of local communities and the environment, alternative development
theories consider economic growth merely as one of the means to ensure basic rights
and environmental sustainability. Alternative development focuses on “how to
empower the social forces engaged in collective action in defense of livelihood, rights
and social justice, such as social movements, civil society and NGOs, environmental
and grassroots organizations.”6
A new body is emerging within the development literature, however, that
seeks to represent a challenge to all development theories. It comes from the
constructivist and post-modernist branches of international relations and it challenges
5
Perhaps one of the most listened to critics of the WB is Joseph Stiglitz, former Chief Economist at the
WB. In his book, “Globalization and Its Discontents,” he argues that the recommendations of the WB
have failed because they were general recipes for modernization that did not pay attention to local
specificities, nor tried to find a proper time and pace for the proposed reforms. Joseph Stiglitz,
Globalization and Its Discontents (New York: Palgrave and MacMillan, 2002).
8
the idea of development as a whole. The constructivists and post-modernists argue
that the promoters of development discourses (whether they argue for modernization
or for local, particular routes to development) are wrong in their basic assumption,
that is, that the Third World countries are underdeveloped and that it is desirable to
make them resemble Western, developed societies more. Coming from a tradition of
discourse analysis stemming mainly from Foucault, these thinkers argue that the
dichotomy between developed and underdeveloped countries is artificial, as is the
notion of a process of development leading the Third World countries to a fate more
similar to that of the Western world. These concepts, while they may provide
inappropriate descriptions of the state of affairs, have become so ingrained in the
collective psyche that they are perceived as inevitable features of reality.
Closely linked to the idea of development is the notion of scarcity, which is
equally controversial in the literature in spite of its apparent simplicity. Given the
contentious nature of this term, it seems almost impossible to provide a definition of
scarcity at this point. However, what scarcity stands for in this paper is a lack of
sufficient resources: e.g., not enough resources in a lake to feed the entire community,
not enough money for a family to buy food. An important debate about scarcity is
whether it is natural and unavoidable, meaning that the resources that nature can offer
to humanity are limited and there is nothing people can do about it, or it is a result of
the inequitable distribution of the existing resources, which would be enough to cover
for the basic needs of the people if greed did not come in the way.
It can be difficult to perfectly match the different trends in development
thought to the abovementioned understandings of scarcity. Still, some meeting points
between the two categorizations can be noticed. The modernization school of
6
“Politics of Alternative Development.” Institute for Social Studies.
http://www.iss.nl/navFrame/frame2.html?content=/WEB1/WebNews/index.jsp.
9
development would typically make the argument that there are simply not enough
resources out there to satisfy the needs of all individuals. A famous argument that can
be linked to this direction is the Malthusian proposition that nature simply cannot
yield enough resources to feed the needs of an exponentially increasing population.7
This type of argument, defining scarcity as a natural phenomenon, is associated with
the positivist/ realist approach to international relations. Most economists also adhere
to this tradition, by assuming that both limited resources and unlimited human wants,
the combination of which lies at the root of scarcity, belong to the state of nature.
According to this perspective, the problems of scarcity can be alleviated through
economic growth, increased investment and production, technological upgrading, all
of which will be conducive to an increase in the yield of natural resources. The
answer provided by such thinkers is that, since one of the two dimensions leading to
scarcity must be tackled, and the unlimited human wants are a given, the answer to
scarcity is to exploit the existing resources more efficiently. Connected to this is the
idea that “traditional” resource exploitation is inefficient and results from lack of
knowledge and a lower level of civilization. All the measures recommended under the
economist frame are deemed “development,” that is, that Third World countries
should adopt the institutions, regulations and practices of the Western world as the
only means of improving their lot.
The dependency school theorists, on the other hand, would argue that scarcity
is not so much a result of the limited resources, but of their unequal and unfair
distribution. It is those in power that have access to the resources, because of their
position in the structure of society. On this point, dependency school thinkers meet
the constructivists and post-modernists, and their common view on scarcity can be
7
Thomas Robert Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1993).
10
summarized by the following position expressed by E. Carr, a leading constructivist
scholar: “Despite broad food shortages, the cause of food insecurity was not the lack
of food in a given place. Rather, it was influenced by access and production, both of
which related to social roles and status.”8 This quote makes clear that the schools of
thought mentioned above are not to be kept absolutely separate, that there are
interconnections and dialogue among them, which can only be beneficial to the
grasping of the issues under discussion. The distinction between the neo-Marxist and
the constructivist/ post-modernist views on scarcity can be found in the emphasis that
the former place on the intentional imposition of a particular world vision and
practices by the stronger actors on the weaker ones, as opposed to the latter putting
more stress on the structural creation of a prevalent interpretation. Thus far,
constructivism and post-modernism have been lumped together because of their
shared view that resources are not scarce necessarily because of the exhaustibility of
nature, but because of the functioning of the world system, which grants more
resource access to some categories of society while excluding other groups. In seeing
scarcity as a socially constructed phenomenon, these schools challenge the
mainstream view promoted by the positivists/ realists/ economists.
In explaining the roots of scarcity, post-modernist thinkers make the argument
that established discourses are instrumental in perpetuating the existing social
structure and relationships of power. M. DuBois is one of the post-modernist thinkers
following the framework of power and discourse analysis created by Foucault.
According to him,
Development is the process that has as its goal the restructuring of the
behaviors and practices of individuals and populations and the
introduction of new ones. To what end? Ostensibly, to increase
economic productivity, the wealth of the nation, the level of health and
8
Edward Carr, “Postmodern Conceptualizations, Modernist Applications: Rethinking the Role of
Society in Food Security,” Food Policy 31(1) (February 2006): 14-29.
11
education of the people--in short, to increase public welfare. Beneath
the surface of activity, however, one can discern the actions of biopolitics and disciplinary power harnessing the energy of the social
body and molding individual bodies into subjects...The aim of the
disciplinary power is to increase, in terms of economic utility, the
forces of the body and diminish the same forces in reference to
rebellion and non-conformity.9
More specifically, this disciplinary power is presented as a means of perpetuating the
capitalist system: “In order to maintain production and growth, capitalism needs a
sufficient supply of labor in terms of both numbers and health; actually, a surplus is
needed in order to preserve low wages.”10 While DuBois focuses on the requirements
placed by capitalism and its associated structures of power (and discourse) on the
nature of the production process and the profile of labor, other thinkers even question
the basic assumption of economist thinking, namely that human wants are naturally
limitless. Such an argument is made by Lakshman Yapa, who claims that it is the
functioning of the dominant capitalist system that requires for the continuous creation
of needs (his argument follows closely the thinking of Marx on artificially created
needs).11 In Yapa’s words, “The endless construction of need is an essential social
relation of capitalist production because economic growth depends on the production
of new goods for new markets.”12
The basic argument of the post-modernists can be summarized as follows:
power and knowledge are inter-connected. Ever since the capitalist system emerged,
the actors favored by the functioning of this system have been interested in its
perpetuation, which they can do through establishing specific official discourses (both
at the political and scientific level), discourses that are then taken as the generally
9
Michel DuBois, “The Governance of the Third World: A Foucauldian Perspective on Power,”
Alternatives (1991): 10.
10
Idem 9: 12.
11
Most of the post-modern thinkers draw heavily on Marxist thought in their analysis of the capitalist
system.
12
accepted and unchangeable truth. The fact that certain discourses are dominant does
not imply that they are truthful, but merely that they are promoted by forces that are
powerful and able to impose them. These discourses, in their turn, help to perpetuate
the power position of those same forces that created and disseminated them (for this
very purpose). Within the current functioning of the capitalist world, it is specific
actors that are winning: international corporations and Western countries (companies
and consumers) are generally acknowledged as such. They are also the ones to
advance certain development discourses. It is Western governments, academia, nongovernmental organizations, aid agencies, and Western-dominated international
organizations that construct the development discourse. Behind these actors though, it
is the needs of perpetually expanding capitalism that emphasize this type of
development discourse in order to create favorable conditions for the functioning of
the system. While this outline may be a simplification of the arguments of the postmodern critics of development, it does show the importance given by these thinkers
on power exercised through discourse. Arturo Escobar is an important author
describing development theory as a discourse of the powerful actors in the
international system. His arguments also emphasize the link between post-modern
thinking on development (post-development theories) and dependency school
theories.
The post-modernist view described above may be considered slightly
tendentious, and constructivist thinkers pay attention to such criticisms when they
define their own position as a moderate one between the positivists/realists and the
post-modernist scholars of international relations. Rather than focusing, like the
positivists, on the existence of an objective reality and the impact it has on human
12
Laksham Yapa, “What Causes Poverty? A Postmodern View,” Annals of the Association of
American Geographers 86(4) (1996): 707-728.
13
thought, or, like the post-modernists, on the manner in which reality is inevitably
altered by discourse and relationships of power, the constructivists trail the middle
ground by studying “the manner in which the material world shapes and is shaped by
human action and interaction, depending on dynamic normative and epistemic
interpretations of the material world.”13 An important constructivist, Emanuel Adler
explains that,
Constructivism shows that even our most enduring institutions are
based on collective understandings; that they are reified structures that
were once upon a time conceived ex nihilo by human consciousness;
and that these understandings were subsequently diffused and
consolidated until they were taken for granted. Moreover,
constructivists believe that the human capacity for reflection or
learning has its greatest impact on the manner in which individuals and
social actors attach meaning to the material world and cognitively
frame the world they know, experience and understand. Thus
collective understandings provide people with reasons why things are
as they are and indications as to how they should use their material
abilities and power.14
The notion of socially constructed scarcity as used in this thesis seeks to
combine the dependency school interpretation of scarcity with the constructivist/
post-modernist reading. This discussion of socially constructed scarcity of the
resources of Lake Victoria, Tanzania, draws upon a theoretical framework introduced
by Federico Aguilera-Klink, Eduardo Perez-Moriana and Juan Sanchez-Garcia in
their article “The Social Construction of Scarcity. The Case of Water in Tenerife
(Canary Islands).” The authors stress that they are not talking about social
construction only in the sense of pure discourse creation. Rather, what they have in
mind is a more complex phenomenon of the existing resources being acted upon by
social forces which, in their turn, are determined by and make use of the prevalent
discourse on resource-use (this discourse too is resulted from a specific dominant
13
Emanuel Adler, “Seizing the Middle Ground: Constructivism in World Politics,” European Journal
of International Relations 3(3) (1997): 319-363.
14
ideology, namely economic liberalism as the basis for capitalism). To quote the
authors, “water scarcity in Tenerife is not physical or natural, but rather socially
constructed (socially constructed scarcity means that the scarcity has more to do with
the application of a particular rationale that renders some conducts and social
processes legitimate).”15
In their article about water scarcity, these authors challenge the view that
water scarcity in Tenerife is physical or natural. Rather, they show how water scarcity
was gradually socially constructed from a starting point where water was so abundant
that it represented the main reason for the colonization of the island (the Spanish
conquered and colonized the island in the 15th century because it had the water
resources needed for cash crops). The turning point in this process, the authors argue,
was the transformation in the perception of water, from an ecosocial asset/ common
property to a commodity/ capital asset. This re-conceptualization came together with
economist thinking, brought about by Enlightenment, and the associated
modernization paradigm. As the authors explain,
It was against this backdrop that the ideas of the Enlightenment gained
ground. These may be summed up as the glorification of private
interests as the sole motor and destiny of all economic activity, and the
need for unrestricted competition by economic and social agents as the
most adequate form of resource allocation.16
Once water was commodified, a rush for the capture and appropriation of water
resources ensued, which in time led to their over-exploitation. Scarcity was thus
created from a situation of abundance and natural self-sustainability.
14
Idem 13.
Federico Aguilera-Klink, Eduardo Perez-Moriana, Juan Sanchez-Garcia, “The Social Construction of
Scarcity. The Case of Water in Tenerife (Canary Islands),” Ecological Economics 34(2) (2000): 233245.
16
Idem 15.
15
15
This thesis will make a similar argument about the social creation of scarcity
in the riparian regions of Lake Victoria. It will describe the process of turning a selfsustainable system (a biologically self-sustainable lake, which is also the source of
sufficient water and nutrition for the inhabitants of the riparian communities) into a
region faced with scarcity manifested at two levels: biological scarcity of the lake
expressed in the over-exhaustion of its resources; and diminishing incomes and
starvation among the members of the riparian communities.
3. Lake Victoria and the Nile Perch
Lake Victoria is the world’s largest tropical lake. Three countries share its
waters: Tanzania 51%, Uganda 43%, and Kenya 6% (the shores of the lake are
situated in these three countries and they all use its resources).17 Before the 1970s, the
fish population of the lake was quite diverse, including more than 400 species, which
were mostly harvested by artisanal fishers from the littoral regions. The ecosystem of
the lake began to transform in the 1950s, when the piscivorous Nile perch (Lates
niloticus), the omnivorous Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus), and the sardine like
dagaa (Rastrineobola argentea) were introduced from Lake Albert and Lake
Turkana.18
Traditional Fishing on Lake Victoria
The Nile perch was introduced in the lake in the 1950s, but it was not until the
late 1970s that the changes in the ecosystem of the lake (and consequent alterations in
the fishing and commercializing patterns) brought about by this introduction became
glaringly obvious. Until the introduction of the new species, fishing was done through
artisanal techniques, for purposes of subsistence and commercializing on the local
17
James F. Kitchell, Daniel E. Schindler, Richard Ogutu-Ohwayo, Peter N. Reinthal, “The Nile Perch
in Lake Victoria: Interactions between Predation and Fisheries,” Ecological Applications, The
Ecological Society of America (1997): 650-675.
18
Idem 17.
16
market.19 This type of small-scale fishing was a full time activity for most of the
fishermen, with few others using it only as a secondary, seasonal source of income, in
addition to agriculture.20 Furthermore, fishing in the lake was done in a fairly
equitable manner, as most fishermen owned at most one canoe and just the number of
nets they could deploy themselves: “The ownership pattern was thus very
decentralized and the income from the lake was distributed fairly evenly among the
fishermen.”21
Processing and trading for the local markets was also done by local agents.
Women from the communities next to the lake, who were not allowed to go out at sea
for fishing, were usually in charge of these activities, thus providing supplementary
income for their households. They were either selling the fish fresh, or processing it
(sun-drying or smoking it) for commerce in more remote areas. There was a certain
number of professional fishmongers buying the fish and transporting it to areas
inaccessible to the women, but they usually developed personal relationships with the
fishermen based on continuity and trust.22
Overall, the riparian communities were themselves in charge of the
management of the resources of the lake. There was not much outside interference:
external commercial agents were not highly interested in the lake at that point; and the
government, while it had introduced some regulations on the activities on the lake,
19
“Cross-border Fishing and Fish Trade on Lake Victoria,” IUCN/LVFO Socio-economics of the Lake
Victoria Fisheries Phase II, Fisheries Management Series 1 (July 2004).
20
E.G. Jansen, “Rich Fisheries—Poor Fisherfolk. Some Preliminary Observations about the Effects of
Trade and Aid in the Lake Victoria Fisheries,” Socio-economics of the Nile Perch Fishery on Lake
Victoria, Report No.1 (Nairobi: IUCN-EARO, 1997).
21
E.G. Jansen, “The Fishing Population in the Kenyan Part of Lake Victoria. Report to the East
African Freshwater Fisheries Research,” Department of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen
(1973).
22
E.G. Jansen, “Rich Fisheries—Poor Fisherfolk. Some Preliminary Observations about the Effects of
Trade and Aid in the Lake Victoria Fisheries,” Socio-economics of the Nile Perch Fishery on Lake
Victoria, Report No.1 (Nairobi: IUCN-EARO, 1997).
17
was not too keen on enforcing them and left this part to the local communities, who
had better local knowledge and more effective coercive means.
The Introduction of the Nile Perch
All of this changed gradually after the introduction of the Nile perch.
According to most accounts, the Nile perch was brought to Lake Victoria by the
British colonial government, in order to increase the productivity of the lake and
expand commercial fishing.23 The desired effect was achieved: “Nile perch and tilapia
populations grew slowly at first, then increased exponentially during the 1970s
through the 1980s. Major fisheries developed in concert with the increase of Nile
perch as an improved distribution system linked new processing firms to foreign
markets. Total yields climbed to 4 times the maximum of previous fisheries for native
species.”24
The British colonial presence around Lake Victoria in Tanzania was largely
aimed at deriving profits from commercial activity. They were exploiting the forests
around the lake and draining its watershed in order to plant cash crops such as coffee,
tea, sugar, and tobacco.25 The colonists also started considering fishing in the lake as
another possible source of income. By the 1950s, it became clear that the lake would
not yield too much profit unless restocked, which the colonists did, against the
warnings of ecologists, by bringing in the Nile perch and tilapia to replace the small,
bony endemic cichlids.26
The introduction of these species has severely altered the ecosystem of the
lake, causing ecological problems. The predatory species introduced have driven more
23
William Beinart, “African History and Environmental History,” African Affairs (2000): 269-302.
Idem 23.
25
A. Kent MacDougal, “Lake Victoria: Casualty of Capitalism,” Monthly Review (December 2001).
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1132/is_7_53/ai_80965678
26
Idem 25.
24
18
than 300 local species (cichlid) to extinction.27 The lake has been transformed from a
“multi-species lake to one in which there are only three major, commercially
important species: Nile perch, one species of tilapia, and the sardine-like dagaa.”28
Since the introduction of the Nile perch,
the accelerated decline in diversity has altered the food web structure
and caused ecological changes due largely to human actions, which
have profound socio-economic effects. The continuing degradation of
Lake Victoria’s ecological functions has serious long-term
consequences for the ecosystem services it provides and may threaten
social welfare in the different countries bordering its shores.29
The Introduction of the Nile Perch—First Wave of Socially Constructing Scarcity
The introduction of the Nile perch in the lake represents the first step in the
process of social creation of scarcity. In the case of fisheries in Lake Victoria, scarcity
can be discussed at two main levels. One refers to the natural resources of the lake,
namely the fish population that represents the basis of nutrition for the riparian
communities (fish is a high-protein aliment, and eating it a couple of times a week
can ensure the minimum amount of nutrients necessary to avoid starvation). The other
level is linked to fish as a source of income for the riparian communities, whose
members make their subsistence through fishing and commercializing the fish.
1. Scarcity of Lake Resources: Had the Nile perch not been introduced, the ecosystem
of the lake could have remained largely unchanged and self-sustainable. The threat to
the self-sustainability of the lake came from two directions. One is the purely
biological aspect of the relationship between the species. The Nile perch is a large,
predatory fish, which started feeding on the endemic species, thus gradually
eliminating some of them. In addition, when the Nile perch could no longer find
27
Lates niloticus, Animal Diversity Web, University of Michigan Museum of Zoology,
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Lates_niloticus.html.
28
Douglas C. Wilson, “Fisheries Management on Lake Victoria, Tanzania,”
http://africa.msu.edu/PLEA/Asapap1.PDF.
29
William Beinart, “African History and Environmental History,” African Affairs (2000): 269-302.
19
enough sources of food outside of its species, it began feeding on its own, with the
larger fish eating the smaller ones or the young.30 As a result, the number of species
in the lake was reduced, and the fish population was dominated by large specimens.
In this way, a lake with numerous species of fish cohabiting in biological equilibrium
was turned into a realm inhabited by few species for which the continuation of a
balanced coexistence is under question. While this seems to be a case of natural
scarcity, using this concept would indicate a misperception. The biological scarcity of
the fish resources of the lake is a result of human intervention (external to the
ecosystem of the lake) and not a natural outcome of the biological processes taking
place in the ecosystem. Had the Nile perch and the other two species not been
introduced by the colonists, the biological structure of the lake could have remained
largely unaltered.
The self-sustainability of Lake Victoria was threatened not only by the nature
of the reproduction of the fish, but also by the human behaviors associated with the
introduction of the Nile perch. As stated above, the three species were brought in for
commercial interests, in order to make the lake more profitable. The Nile perch is a
“large, white, meaty fish which finds a ready international market, and an industrial
processing and export industry grew up around the lake during the 1980s.”31 The
consequence of such a booming fishing, processing and exporting industry growing
on the shores of the lake was the phenomenon of over-fishing, or over-drawing of the
resources of the lake. Many factors combined to create such a high stimulus for overfishing and most of them will be discussed in the next section of the thesis. At this
point, it is enough to state that it is widely acknowledged that, ever since the 1980s,
30
Lates niloticus, Animal Diversity Web, University of Michigan Museum of Zoology,
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Lates_niloticus.html.
31
A. Kent MacDougal, “Lake Victoria: Casualty of Capitalism,” Monthly Review (December 2001).
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1132/is_7_53/ai_80965678
20
Lake Victoria was over-fished. D. Wilson, a researcher for PLEA, the Program on the
Lakes of East Africa of the University of Michigan,32 “cautiously” concludes that
there has consistently been over-fishing of the lake:
Recent estimates of Nile perch maximum sustainable yield (MSY) are
in the 300,000 metric ton range for the whole lake (Pitcher and Bundy
1995). The quite rough official statistics, which report that the catch in
the Tanzanian half of the lake fluctuated between 146,000 and 213,000
tons between 1988 and 1993 (CIFA 1994), suggest some overfishing.
(…) Pitcher and Bundy, however, review the data available for the
whole lake, including Kenya and Uganda where greater resources are
used in gathering fisheries statistics, and cautiously conclude that the
stock is overexploited.33
Over-fishing went hand in hand with the gradual depletion of the resources of the
lake. The best indicator of the depletion of the lake is the diminishing of the catch:
“In recent years, however, signs of a stagnation of total Nile perch catch have been
observed, against an increased fishing effort.”34 The decrease in catchments of fish
has been documented as a sign of over-fishing by most researchers, from biologists
studying fisheries in Lake Victoria,35 to anthropologists conducting interviews with
fishermen.36
There is a clear-cut causal link between the introduction of the three species,
the increased interest for taking advantage of the novel resources of the lake, and the
decrease of available resources. The logic of this process is one of the dimensions of
the social creation of scarcity on the lake.
32
Representing one of the more moderate voices in this debate.
D. Wilson, M. Medard, C.K. Harris, D.S. Wiley, “The Implications for Participatory Fisheries
Management of Intensified Commercialization on Lake Victoria,” Rural Sociology 64(4) (1999). Copy
of article provided by authors.
34
“Cross-border Fishing and Fish Trade on Lake Victoria,” IUCN/LVFO Socio-economics of the Lake
Victoria Fisheries Phase II, Fisheries Management Series 1 (July 2004).
35
Richard O. Abila, “Fish Trade and Food Security: Are They Reconcilable in Lake Victoria?” Kenya
Marine Fisheries Research Institute.
http://www.fao.org/documents/show_cdr.asp?url_file=/DOCREP/006/Y4961E/y4961e0d.htm
36
Marja Liisa Swantz, “Grassroots Strategies and Directed Development in Tanzania: the Case of the
Fishing Sector,” Wider Working Papers, World Institute for Development Economics, Research of the
United Nations University (August 1989).
33
21
2. Scarcity as Impoverishment of the Local Population: The introduction of the Nile
perch can be equated with the social construction of scarcity at another level too,
namely the increase in the level of poverty of the local population. A more detailed
analysis of the consequences on the riparian population will be included in one of the
following chapters of this thesis. However, it is important to state at this point that the
effects on the local communities have not been uniform. There are both winners and
losers from the changing nature of fishing on the lake.37
At the level of the local communities, the winners are the fishers whose access
to the resources of the lake has not been restricted, because their incomes have risen
over the years: “incomes from the fisheries have grown substantially. Not only has
the industry created thousands of jobs on the lake shore, the artisanal fishers who
continue to supply the raw product from the lake to the landing sites have experienced
a rise in the price for fish.”38 On the other hand, many fishermen have been excluded
from the trade, mainly the poorer ones who could not afford to improve their gear in
order to adapt it to the changing nature of the catch. Even for the ones left in the
trade, the selling of the fish has become a rougher trade, as the negotiations are less
and less conducted by local fishmongers, but by the agents of the factories (the
different factories usually hold monopolies over the beaches and, in many of the
villages, the fishers have only one agent to deal with, which severely limits their
bargaining power).39 As most of the fish is processed and exported, the women that
used to be in charge of the processing and commercializing of the fish on the local
markets were eliminated from the business too. Finally, the fish itself is no longer
37
In an evaluations of gains and losses for the local communities, I do not take into consideration the
gains accrued by the industrial processors. While it is sure they have gained considerably from the
trade, they are not members of the local communities.
38
“Cross-border Fishing and Fish Trade on Lake Victoria,” IUCN/LVFO Socio-economics of the
Lake Victoria Fisheries Phase II, Fisheries Management Series 1 (July 2004).
39
Idem 38.
22
available for the domestic markets, or it has become too expensive for the Tanzanians
living on the shores of the lake. Thus, these people are denied one of the most
valuable sources of protein and some are in danger of starvation.
Overall, many authors make the claim that, for the local populations, the
introduction of these species brought more harm than good: “There are sufficient
indications that the large population groups that have depended on the traditional
fisheries in the past, are losing out. (…) The export-oriented fisheries is a threat both
with regard to employment and food security for millions of poor people in East
Africa.”40 This strong claim will be further substantiated and discussed in the
following chapters of the thesis.
An Alternative Account
Before moving on with the discussion, it is important to mention that there
exists an alternative account of the introduction of the Nile perch in the lake. This
account has not been documented in the literature, and it does not invalidate the
theory of socially constructed scarcity proposed in this paper. In the course of my
research about the introduction of the species in the lake, I have been in touch with D.
Wilson, a researcher who has conducted extensive work on fisheries in the Tanzanian
parts of Lake Victoria. As I have had some difficulties with finding the specific
narrative for the bringing of the Nile perch to the lake, I turned to him with this
question, to which he replied that he was not surprised that I could not document that
precisely, as most authors call the introduction of the species “mysterious,” or assign
the responsibility to the British authorities, because of the mere fact that they were
technically in charge of the management of the lake at the moment.
40
E.G. Jansen, “Rich Fisheries—Poor Fisherfolk. Some Preliminary Observations about the Effects of
Trade and Aid in the Lake Victoria Fisheries,” Socio-economics of the Nile Perch Fishery on Lake
Victoria, Report No.1 (Nairobi: IUCN-EARO, 1997).
23
According to Wilson, during the 1950s, there was a debate in the colonial
fisheries services in East Africa about whether to introduce the Nile perch or not.
Supposedly, the reason why the insertion of the Nile perch was proposed in the first
place was for sports fishing, not for commercial reasons. When the authorities
rejected the proposal, a disgruntled individual took it upon himself to introduce the
Nile perch. This account is not encountered in the literature and Wilson himself did
not include it in his own writings. As he explained to me,
I got the fact that the British authorities, after some debate, had
actually decided against the introduction by reading the debates in
the annual reports of the East African Fisheries Research Organization
from the 1950s. That it was one disgruntled loser of that debate who
actually made the introduction was from a conference I attended in the
early 90s where a recent letter to the editor was passed around from a
man who said that the introduction was not such a big mystery to him,
he had been there as a helper to a British fisheries officer while he was
carrying out the introduction. Of course there could have been more
than one introduction. Or this person may not be a reliable source.41
Most of the literature on fisheries in Tanzania describes the introduction of the
Nile perch as motivated by commercial reasons though. I do not have enough
resources at my disposal to verify which of the accounts is true. Therefore, I have
decided to include both. The most important thing to be considered, however, is that
no matter which explanation is valid, it does not contradict the theory of the social
construction of scarcity. Whether it was done for commercial reasons or in the
interest of leisure activities, the insertion of the Nile perch was an artificial act that
had the consequences described above. It affected the ecosystem of the lake and the
nature of fishing and commercial activities around the lake in such a way as to
produce scarcity. It was not a natural phenomenon, but it was the result of external,
human intervention. These two elements combine to make the argument that the
41
Personal communication with Prof. D. Wilson.
24
introduction of the Nile perch represents the first step in the social creation of scarcity
in Lake Victoria.
4. Export Promotion
While the introduction of the Nile perch represents the beginning of the
process of social construction of scarcity, as the previous chapter shows, scarcity
around Lake Victoria would not have become so severe without further actions of the
Tanzanian government, the processing and exporting companies, and the international
organizations. In this chapter, I will argue that the export promotion strategies of the
Tanzanian post-colonial government, especially starting with the 1980s, have been
instrumental in manufacturing scarcity in the area.
The four main goals of the Tanzanian (as well and Ugandan and Kenyan)
national fisheries policy at the moment are:
1. First and foremost, to increase per capita consumption of fish
through production of low cost high protein food (fish);
2. Secondly, increase employment opportunities in the country through
fishing, fish processing and fish trade;
3. Thirdly, to enhance the living conditions of the fishermen and their
families by maximizing economic benefits to them. This is achieved
through provision of cold storage, fish handling and processing
facilities;
4. Fourthly, to maximize export and foreign exchange earning
capacity.42
A closer look at how these four goals are implemented emphasizes a
contradiction between some of them. Ever since the 1960s, a fish trade industry has
been developing on the shores of the lake and it has provided the local communities
with significant opportunities of employment (especially by employing fishermen
42
E.G. Jansen, “Rich Fisheries—Poor Fisherfolk. Some Preliminary Observations about the Effects of
Trade and Aid in the Lake Victoria Fisheries,” Socio-economics of the Nile Perch Fishery on Lake
Victoria, Report No.1 (Nairobi: IUCN-EARO, 1997).
25
and, later on, manual workers for industrial processing).43 This falls in line with the
second and last objective and, arguably, with the third one too. On the other hand, the
explosion of fish trade has not contributed to better nutrition at cheaper costs for the
local population, as stated by the first objective. On the contrary, fish is more
expensive, if available at all for the local markets. 44
Ever since the 1980s, the government has been engaged in economic policies
whose main goal is the achievement of economic growth through export-promotion:
“The Government recognizes the need for a robust high growth to fight the nationwide poverty. Higher (6-8 percent) and sustained growth is necessary. While growth
is necessary it is important that it is broad-based and centered on improving the living
conditions of the poor.”45 High growth is to be achieved through a particular set of
economic policies, that are by now familiar to any student of political economy
studying the recommendations that the international economic organizations give to
poor countries in search of development: monetary and exchange controls,
privatization of public enterprises and government services, opening to world
markets, promotion of foreign investors and export activities: “The economic reform
programmes that commenced in 1986 have converted the command-based economy
into a market one. Trade, exchange rates and interest rates are now fully liberalized.
The reform of parastatals has privatised/ divested about half the more than 4000
43
Most processing factories have been located in Uganda and Kenya, rather than Tanzania, throughout
this period and Tanzanians have complained on occasion that they could benefit more from the trade if
they were not forced to take the fish abroad for processing.
44
Authors agree that there is a contradiction between these goals: "The three governments are very
aware that the above mentioned objectives are conflicting and that a balance has to be struck between
the first three objectives and the last objective. There is, however, little doubt that it is the fourth
objective which has received priority. This objective is also very much in line with national goals of
the three East African countries and the objectives of the structural adjustment programs, strongly
promoted by the World Bank and the IMF.” E.G. Jansen, “Rich Fisheries—Poor Fisherfolk. Some
Preliminary Observations about the Effects of Trade and Aid in the Lake Victoria Fisheries,” Socioeconomics of the Nile Perch Fishery on Lake Victoria, Report No.1 (Nairobi: IUCN-EARO, 1997).
45
“Economic Survey. Economy.” Website of the Tanzanian Government.
http://www.tanzania.go.tz/economy.html#Development.
26
parastatals.”46 It is clear that the Tanzanian government has been pursuing a line of
economic reforms that is compatible with the modernization theories of development
argued, among others, by the WB and IMF.
In agreement with these theories, the Tanzanian government has been, ever
since the mid-1980s, at the forefront of the promotion of export-led strategies for
economic growth. It has been committed to encouraging investment and supporting
the fishing/ processing/ exporting firms, measures which are coordinated through the
Tanzanian Investment Center in Dar-El-Salaam. Generally, the fishing/ processing/
exporting firms receive tax breaks and other types of concessions in exchange for the
foreign direct investment that they bring to the country. For purposes of investment
incentives, fish processing on Lake Victoria belongs to two categories of priority
sectors of the national economy, namely “Export Processing” and “Natural Resources
including fishing.”47 Tanzanian companies whose amount of fixed investment equals
at least $100,000 and foreign companies investing more than $300,000 benefit from
the following types of incentives: reduced import tariff on project capital items (5%
import duty for investment in priority sectors); favorable investment allowances and
deductions (capital allowance of 100% on industrial buildings, plant and machinery);
deferment of VAT payment on project capital goods; import duty drawbacks on raw
materials; zero-rated VAT on goods manufactured for export; up to five years
carryover of all business losses against future profits; reasonable corporate tax rates
30% and low withholding tax on loan interest payments; the unrestricted right to
transfer outside the country 100% of foreign exchange earned profits and capital; the
46
Idem 45.
“Business Page. Investment Incentives. Tanzanian Investment Center.”
http://www.tanzaniaembassy.or.jp/english/busines/in_incen.html.
47
27
ease of obtaining other permits such as Residence/ Work Permits, industrial license,
trading license, etc.48
This type of measures was one of the main factors leading to the increase of
the share of export activities in the structure of Tanzanian economy. Between 2000
and 2004, for instance, the proportion of export activities to the total GDP has grown
from 14.4% to 18.6%. In the same period, the GDP itself has increased slightly from
$9.1 billion to $10.9 billion.49 Fish exports from Lake Victoria have contributed to
this evolution, as exports of fish fillets represent on average about 10% of total export
earnings and this proportion is on the increase.50
These strategies aimed at welcoming investment into the economy have
consistently helped the fish trade companies to develop over the years. The Tanzanian
government’s main justification for pursuing these export-led strategies is the
existence of the Structural Adjustment Plans of the WB/IMF. The history of the
Tanzanian involvement with these international institutions begins in 1980s, when the
country engages in the first structural plan (1986), aimed at:
liberalizing the economy along market lines and encouraging both
foreign and domestic private investment (…), dismantling state controls
and encouraging more participation of the private sector in the
economy. The program included a comprehensive package of policies
which reduced the budget deficit and improved monetary control,
substantially depreciated the overvalued exchange rate, liberalized the
trade regime, removed most price controls, eased restrictions on the
marketing of food crops, freed interest rates, and initiated a
restructuring of the financial sector.51
48
Idem 47.
“Tanzania Data Profile.” World Development Indicators database (April 2006).
http://devdata.worldbank.org/external/CPProfile.asp?CCODE=TZA&PTYPE=CP.
50
“Tanzanian Economy. Agricultural Sectors. Fishing.”
http://www.tptanzania.co.tz/economy_body.html.
51
“Background Note: Tanzania,” Bureau of African Affairs, United States Department of State, March
2006, http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2843.htm.
49
28
Tanzania ended up being dependent on the international organizations as a
result of a combination of factors. The socialist policies implemented by Nyerere’s
government after independence (1962), focusing the economy on agriculture, with
farming done in small communities and coordinated by the state, failed to bring about
economic self-sufficiency. The world economic crisis in the 1970s brought down the
terms of trade for the products exported by the country, and it also weakened the
countries that were providing aid to Tanzania, reducing their willingness to sustain
the Tanzanian economy. The inability of the country to sustain itself economically in
these conditions determined it to approach the IMF in the early 1980s. “The IMF
package contained recommendations which Tanzania found difficult to accept.
Whereas the applicant envisaged a credit bound to industrial rehabilitation, the Fund
set forth to question the country’s economy as a whole.”52 From then onwards,
Tanzania has continually had agreements with the IMF, being financially dependent
on the institution and on foreign donors and, as a consequence, having to dutifully
implement the policy recommendations of the WB/IMF. One of the main economic
principles promoted by these institutions has been achieving economic growth and
development through trade liberalization and stimulation of exports. These
recommendations provide the framework for the actions of the Tanzanian government
aimed at supporting the exporting companies (categorized as foreign investors).
The country’s situation, however, has not improved throughout the years as a
result of this kind of policies. Tanzania is now considered to be a Highly Indebted
Poor Country (HIPC). Recent data (2004) provided by the World Bank show that
Tanzania is faring slightly worse than the average of the entire sub-Saharan region in
terms of quality of life: the percentage of the population below poverty line is 36%;
52
Werner Biermann, Jumanne Wagao, “The Quest for Adjustment: Tanzania and the IMF, 19801986,” African Studies Review, African Studies Association, 1986: 55.
29
life expectancy at birth is 43 years, as opposed to the average for the whole subSaharan region of 46 years; infant mortality is 104/1000 as opposed to 101/1000;
child malnutrition defines 29% of the children under the age of 5.53 As this data show,
poverty is far from being alleviated in Tanzania through the national economic
policies promoted by the government.
In addition, while the Tanzanian government (encouraged by the WB/IMF
duo) promotes such strategies of growth, there is no longer agreement among the
economists that this is the only right way to go. In fact, most economists have come
to agree that there are different approaches to economic development, and countries
would be better off if they implemented the one matching their economic history,
institutional structure and cultural specificity.54 While there is agreement that
international trade is the main motor behind the benefits brought by capitalism, it is
not necessarily implied that focusing mainly on promotion of exports and letting in
foreign investment is the best way to reap the benefits of international trade. Actually,
given that the current era of capitalism is characterized by explosive technological
development, countries may be better off using more protective strategies. An
example of such an argument is the conclusion of an analysis done by Nobel winning
economist (formerly working for the World Bank) Joseph Stiglitz together with Bruce
Greenwald. According to them, while conventional wisdom claims that trade
improves economic efficiency and stimulates growth, a more protective economic
strategy is the best way for the economies of the poor countries to reduce the
53
“Tanzania at a Glance.” World Bank Sources of Data.
http://devdata.worldbank.org/AAG/tza_aag.pdf.
Where data for the entire region is not mentioned it is because it is not included in the quoted WB
report.
54
Examples of economists following this line of thinking are: A. Shoenfield (“Modern Capitalism. The
Changing Balance of Public and Private Power,” London, Oxford: New York, 1965), P. Gourevich
(“Politics in Hard Times. Comparative Responses to International Economic Crises,” Ithaca and
London: Cornell University Press, 1986), J.E. Stiglitz (“Globalization and its Discontents,” London:
Allen Lane, 2002).
30
technological gap existing between them and the more developed economies, thus
allowing them to finally reap some benefits from international trade.55
Second Wave of Socially Constructing Scarcity
It is almost impossible to settle whether the support granted to exports has
been more detrimental or beneficial. Emphasizing the negative consequences of the
development of the fish export industry (as this paper generally does, in line with the
view of its author) should not give the impression that it does not make sense for the
Tanzanian government to promote investment in the trade. Exporting fish does bring
important incomes to the country (an additional point worth discussing here would be
the distribution of the income derived from exports, and what proportion of it makes
it back to the riparian communities), contributing also to economic growth; the taxes
on the activities of these firms bring additional funding for the state budget (once
again, the issue is how this money is then deployed by the government); the fish trade
industry creates new opportunities for employment and its existence leads to an
increase in the personal gains of the employed fishermen; the companies also help
build local infrastructure, which they use for their activities, but which is also
beneficial to the daily life of the communities.
On the other hand, the explosion of the fish trade business was instrumental in
causing the over-exploitation of the resources of the lake, raising questions about its
long-term sustainability, about the exclusion of certain categories of the local
population from the fish-related activities that used to ensure their subsistence, and
about the negative consequences for nutrition of the total orientation of the fish
products towards external markets rather than domestic ones. It is a central part of the
argument of this paper that the intensive promotion of export activities played an
55
Bruce Greenwald, Joseph Stiglitz, Helping Infant Economies Grow: Foundations of Trade Policies
for Developing Countries, Columbia University.
31
important role in the social construction of scarcity in the villages next to the lake.
Before the introduction of the Nile perch and the consequent development of fish
trade, the ecosystem of the lake was self-sustainable and it provided basic nutrition
for most of the riparian population, as most of the families had at least one member
involved in fishing activities. After external human intervention, scarcity appeared at
both the level of natural resources and that of incomes of the population and their
food security. These premises lead to the conclusion that scarcity was socially created
on the shores of Lake Victoria and that export-led strategies of growth had an
important part to play in this process.
As described in the section about the first wave of socially constructed
scarcity, there are two levels at which scarcity manifests itself in the context of Lake
Victoria: one refers to the natural resources of the lake, its sustainability and
accessibility of its resources for the riparian populations; another is about fish as a
source of income for the riparian communities, whose members make their
subsistence through fishing and commercializing the fish. At these two levels, the
effects of the introduction of the Nile perch were amplified by the promotion of fish
trade activities. In terms of availability of fish in the lake, export promotion has
contributed to over-fishing, therefore, to the depletion of the lake of its natural
resources. In terms of material well-being of the local communities, the prevalence of
processing companies in the trade has led gradually to the exclusion of artisanal
fishers and women processors from the trade. These people were thus left without a
substantial source of income. Finally, as regards the food safety of the region, the
impacts of export support mechanisms are usually evaluated negatively: “fishing
effort was noted to have shifted from the capture of domestic market oriented species
32
to export oriented species (…), disturbing the domestic market supply and raising
fears about an increasing protein deficit, which already exists in the countryside.”56
The effects of export promotion are much more nuanced and debatable than
modernization theories of economic development make it sound.
5. Consequences of the Introduction of the Nile Perch on the Local Population
There is much controversy about the effects of the introduction of the Nile
perch and the promotion of its export to foreign markets. The evaluation of the
consequences of this act vary, depending on the level of analysis, the time period
under discussion, and sometimes merely the position of the beholder.
The consequences can be evaluated as mostly positive or negative, depending
on the actors taken into consideration. To begin with, the actors involved are (starting
from top level): the international organizations that have a say in the economic
policies of the country, such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and
the World Trade Organization; the donor countries, such as Britain; other
international organizations interested in such issues as health, food security or the
environment, such as the World Health Organization, or the United Nations Food and
Agriculture Organization and other UN bodies; the international aid agencies and
their local branches (International Federation of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent,
or agencies sponsored by different states, such as Norway or Sweden57); the scientific
and academic community; the Tanzanian government, both at the national and local
levels; the companies that are in charge of fishing, processing and exporting of fish;
the local fishermen and their families; the rest of the members of the local
communities who are not involved in the fish trade. The focus of this thesis is to
56
“Integrated Assessment of Trade Liberalization and Trade-Related Policies. A Country Study on
Fisheries Sector in Senegal.” United Nations (New York and Geneva, 2002): 35.
57
“Supply Survey on Fish and Fish-Products in Tanzania,” International Trade Center
UNCTAD/WTO, July-August 1999, http://www.intrancen.org/sstp/Survey/fish/fishtan.html.
33
discuss the effects of the introduction of the Nile perch at the level of the local
communities, both for the fishers and for those who are not a part of the trade.
It is generally agreed that, until the 1980s, when the results of the insertions of
the three new species became highly visible, the local communities experienced an
increase in their level of well being. The Nile perch was even called the “savior” fish.
For one thing, the fishermen would be able to fish much larger quantities (the Nile
perch is a large species, therefore catching even one specimen can be more
commercially effective than spending more time catching the smaller, bonier endemic
species; furthermore, this species reproduces faster than the others, so its availability
in the lake was larger). In addition, the demand for export of the Nile perch and tilapia
exploded, leading to an increase in the price of this merchandise, which translated into
higher incomes for the fishers and their families. At this point too, the export and
processing firms had not developed to such a large extent (at least in Tanzania, where
processing firms established themselves later than in Uganda and Kenya) so as to take
over the business of processing from the local communities and to drive most of the
fish out of the domestic markets. Overall therefore, the decades up to the 80s were a
period when the positive outcomes of the introduction of the three species were
prevalent:
In the 1980s it was not unusual to catch Nile Perches weighing up to
50 kg. As the fish multiplied, so did the foreign investors. Prices
soared. There was a real economic boom. “We can compare what
happened to a gold rush,” says researcher Richard Abila. “Suddenly
this lake where nobody had ever seen any commercial value, created
an activity worth billions of shillings…The first ones to invest have
become rich…But like any gold rush, it created some tragic side
effects. Some of which can still be felt today.”58
58
Alexis Masciarelli, “The Rise and Fall of the Nile Perch,” BBC News,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/africa/4348289.stm.
34
As much as there is agreement on the immediate benefits brought by the Nile
perch, there is divergence among the voices that analyze the long-run consequences of
this step. One of the main elements to be mentioned in this discussion is the gradual
exclusion of most of the artisanal fishers from the trade. This exclusion came about
for several reasons. Firstly, as the Nile perch is a bigger fish that requires better, more
expensive gear to catch, the fishermen that were mostly able to benefit from its
existence were the richer ones, who were able to purchase this type of gear and also
upgrade it in line with the alterations of the ecosystem of the lake. Actually, the large
Nile perch, reproducing at a fast pace, provided an excellent basis for expanded fish
production and it attracted the entry of many new fishers in the exploitation of the
lake.59 An important point here is that the new entrants were usually either companies
or better off fishers because the fishing of the Nile perch can be better done with more
powerful and expensive tools (large canoes, long gill nets, and outboard engines60)
than the fishing of the endemic species.61 Some of the small-scale fishermen were
further disadvantaged by the transformations in the ecosystem of the lake. As
mentioned earlier in the paper, in terms of the biological composition of the lake, the
presence of the Nile perch caused the disappearance of numerous other species that
used to be fished by local fishermen using artisanal techniques.
Even more, the fate of the local fishermen is put under question because of the
over-exploitation of the lake, caused by the combined effects of the biological
evolution of the ecosystem after the introduction of the Nile perch, and the increased
exploitation of the lake over the years as a response to market stimuli (which, in their
59
D.C. Wilson, M. Medard, C.K. Harris, D.S. Wiley, The Implications for Participatory Fisheries
Management of Intensified Commercialization on Lake Victoria, Rural Sociology 64(4) (1999): 554572.
60
Idem 59.
61
This should not be read to say that the Nile perch cannot be caught with simpler gear, such as a long
line. Indeed, it can and fishers still use such methods. However, in order to be more efficient in the
35
turn, are made more influential through intervention by the Tanzanian government
and international institutions, as was shown above in the paper). While some of the
fishers are concentrated merely on the current gains from the commercialization of the
Nile perch, many of them are worried that they will not have work on the long run
because the lake will run out of resources.62
Overall, in spite of the exclusion of small-scale artisanal fishermen from the
trade, most of the fishermen that are left in the business are better off in the Nile perch
trade than they would be otherwise. In fact, if a general evaluation is to be made about
the total impact of the introduction of the Nile perch on the fishermen population, one
would have to agree that the impact was positive. The fishers and their families
achieve better incomes and the quality of their nutrition has been improving over the
years.63 The categories of fishers that are still in the trade are: fishers that are directly
employed by the companies working on the shores of the lake; fishers that either have
ownership of the gear or can afford to rent it (who then sell their catch to the company
agents); the fishers that are merely employed by the boat owners, whose gains, while
not substantial, are still worth taking into account.
An interesting point here is the opinion of the fishers about their bargaining
position in reference to the agents of the factories. As most of the fish nowadays goes
to the processing and exporting factories, then all the dealings have to be made
through the agents of the factories. Interviews with fishermen from beaches next to
the Tanzanian border emphasize the fact that the bargaining position of the fishers is
weakened in this way, because usually there is only one agent that the fishermen on a
pursuit of this species (especially if he is interested in catching a larger specimen, or a bigger quantity
of fish, as required by the commercial activity), a fisher would have to use the more advanced gear.
62
“Cross-border Fishing and Fish Trade on Lake Victoria,” IUCN/LVFO Socio-economics of the Lake
Victoria Fisheries Phase II, Fisheries Management Series 1 (July 2004).
63
D. Wilson, “Fishers’ Attitude Towards Management on Lake Victoria: Preliminary Findings,”
Michigan University (1993). Copy of article provided by author.
36
specific beach can sell their fish too.64 The lack of competition among different fish
buyers does not allow the fishermen to argue for a better price. In some beaches, the
bargaining position of the fishers is weakened further by the lack of refrigeration
facilities, the implication being that they are in a rush to place their merchandise as
soon as possible and cannot afford to argue too much.
Another category of the local population that needs to be taken into account
when making an evaluation of the impact of the introduction of the three species is
represented by the former processors and distributors for the local market. The large
majority of the fish taken out of the lake nowadays is dedicated to export to Europe,
North America, and Asia. Almost none of it is left for the domestic market. The
merchandise goes exclusively to the external markets because the great demand there
causes the external prices to increase to such a level that it is not profitable for the
companies to sell inside Tanzania. The market for Nile perch in Tanzania, on the
other hand, was never too developed because the buyers were usually poor and
because there was no preference for the Nile perch, which is considered to be too oily
and smelly by Tanzanians.65 One additional element here is the constant support lent
to the export business by the government (through financial incentives primarily) and
the international economic organizations (through the directions they advise for the
national economic policies of Tanzania). Because of the direction of the merchandise
towards export, the processors and distributors for the domestic markets were left out
of business. These were usually represented by the female population of the riparian
communities. At most, the women are currently employed in the processing and
selling of the fish carcasses discarded by the processing companies:
64
“Cross-border Fishing and Fish Trade on Lake Victoria,” IUCN/LVFO Socio-economics of the Lake
Victoria Fisheries Phase II, Fisheries Management Series 1 (July 2004).
65
Alexis Masciarelli, “The Rise and Fall of the Nile Perch,” BBC News,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/africa/4348289.stm.
37
Another consequence of the development of the fishery is that local
people have been progressively edged out of production, pricing,
marketing and processing. Fish factories and their agents now tightly
control these activities (…) Employment chances in traditional fish
trading and processing sectors for Nile perch and its products,
previously the preserve of poor women, are now largely integrated in
the marketing chain for fish processing and fishmeal industries.66
Perhaps the most problematic consequence of the transformation of
commercial activity on the lake refers to food security and, more specifically, the
access of the local population to the nutritional resources of the lake. Over the past
years, several institutions, at both national and international levels, have expressed
concern over food security in the area. Among them, the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations FAO has explained that a too large export of fish
from the lake can have a detrimental effect on the nutritional well being of the
riparian communities.67 Interviews with members of the local communities show that
people can afford to buy and eat fish less these days than they could in the past.68
Research done by anthropologists in the villages next to the lake shows that, over a
period of five years (1989-1994), more than 60% of the households that are not
involved in fishing activities report a decrease in the amount of fish eaten.69 These
people do not have access to fish because most of it is taken abroad to be sold on
foreign markets and because of the large price increases over the past years. The
importance of access to fish cannot be ignored: fish is one of the best sources of
protein in the daily diet, the other source of food available to Tanzanians in these
regions being mainly cereals with low nutrition value.
66
Richard O. Abila, “Fish Trade and Food Security: Are They Reconcilable in Lake Victoria?” Kenya
Marine Fisheries Research Institute.
http://www.fao.org/documents/show_cdr.asp?url_file=/DOCREP/006/Y4961E/y4961e0d.htm
67
E.G. Jansen, “Rich Fisheries—Poor Fisherfolk. Some Preliminary Observations about the Effects of
Trade and Aid in the Lake Victoria Fisheries,” Socio-economics of the Nile Perch Fishery on Lake
Victoria, Report No.1 (Nairobi: IUCN-EARO, 1997).
68
Such an evaluation can be found in the writings of Jansen, Wilson, and Swantz.
38
Oftentimes people are reduced to consuming the leftovers discarded by the
processing companies (bones and skin, carcasses), which are not by far as nutritious
as the protein-rich fish, and which are highly dubitable in terms of meeting normal
health standards (the companies may just discard them on the beaches, from where
they are collected and processed to be turned into food). Sometimes, even these
remains are not accessible, either because even they are too expensive or because the
fish processing companies sell them to the fishmeal producing factories instead of just
throwing them away:
In the earlier years of Nile perch processing, the remains of Nile perch
after removing fillet, commonly known as frame was considered a
waste, and factories incurred expenses to dispose of it. In less than a
decade, this product became an important part of the diet of many
people especially in Western Kenya. By the late 1980s, almost all Nile
perch frames produced by factories was consumed by local people or
discarded (…) However, the fishmeal industry soon started to use Nile
perch frames in processing fishmeal. Their demand for frames has
increased so much that they now compete directly with the local
market processing it for human food.70
In general, while it is true that the condition of the fishermen that are still
employed is better off, many members of the riparian communities were left without
a source of income, and the village inhabitants are increasingly confronted with the
issue of insufficient nutrition. Therefore, at the level of local communities, it is
impossible to make the argument that the introduction of the Nile perch has produced
a positive outcome. On the other hand, it is clear that the processing and exporting
companies are making important profits from the Nile perch business, to such an
extent that they are focusing mainly on the short-term benefits of the trade at the price
of ignoring the long-term sustainability of the lake resources.
69
Douglas C. Wilson, Fisheries Management on Lake Victoria, Tanzania,
http://africa.msu.edu/PLEA/Asapap1.PDF. Chart p. 20.
39
Finally, the argument is usually made, by these companies, the Tanzanian
government and some of the international institutions, that, even if such a high degree
of exports from the lake may damage the local communities, it will eventually lead to
the economic growth of the national economy. On the long run, this should further
lead to improvements in the condition of the local communities too. According to
recent research, this claim is too strong. While there has been a certain degree of
economic growth in Tanzania, it has been concentrated in the urban areas, leaving the
poorer parts, which are the ones in desperate need of growth, still in need of positive
changes: “Poverty reduction is on track in urban areas, but reaching the Millennium
Development Goals target for bringing down poverty in rural areas, where most
Tanzanians live, requires sustaining high growth in rural output per capita.”71 It must
be kept in mind that this is one of the more optimistic reports of the national
economic policies pursued by the Tanzanian government. It states that, while there is
economic growth achieved, this growth is only manifested in small, concentrated
urban areas, and that the inhabitants of poor, rural regions must wait to feel the effects
of growth. Other reports state that there is not sufficient economic growth anyhow, or
even that using GDP growth as an indicator for the well being of a country is not the
most informative tool (other indicators, such as the ones about quality of life quoted
earlier in this thesis, should be taken into account as well).
Even if economic growth takes place, the government and other organizations
active in the poor regions of Tanzania must make sure that the effects of the growth
trickle down to the more marginal segments of society. Liberal economists usually
claim that it is enough to be concerned with achieving economic growth, because its
70
Richard O. Abila, “Fish Trade and Food Security: Are They Reconcilable in Lake Victoria?” Kenya
Marine Fisheries Research Institute.
http://www.fao.org/documents/show_cdr.asp?url_file=/DOCREP/006/Y4961E/y4961e0d.htm
40
positive effects will naturally spread to all parts of society. Economic practice has
thus far not validated this claim, and that is one of the reasons governments create
social policies and aid agencies come to poor regions. While such projects are in
place, it is interesting to evaluate whether they manage to bring about the envisaged
positive changes.
6. Aid Agencies
The previous chapters have established a connection between scarcity in the
riparian regions of Lake Victoria and specific profit-oriented actions of the colonial
power, plus the measures taken by the post-colonial government in order to promote
national economic growth. This chapter will show how the activities of the aid
agencies present in the region have not managed to alleviate the negative
consequences of these policies on the local population, on occasion even proving to
be detrimental in spite of good intentions.
It is not the goal of this paper to prove that scarcity was created in the region
with “bad intentions,” because powerful actors could and did exploit the weaker ones.
While this may be the case on occasion (the colonists did intent to exploit the
resources of the lake; the processing companies are able to derive more profit from
their activities if they capture all the fish taken out of the lake and export it, thus
leaving the local markets with no supply of the nutritious aliment; furthermore, the
processing companies understand this link and choose not to take it into consideration
because their focus, as businesses, is to make more profit), a more nuanced argument
would be closer to reality. This paper argues rather that those categories of the local
population that were excluded from access to the resources of the lake ended up in
this situation because they were ignored by most of the actors involved, especially by
71
Gabriel Demombynes, “Growth, Inequality, and Simulated Poverty Paths for Tanzania,” World Bank
(Washington DC, 2004).
41
their own government. These people and their suffering have been considered
“negligible” in the whole discussion about the management of the resources of the
lake, or belonging to the “costs” that have to be paid by a community in order to
develop.72 Anthropologist Marja Liisa Swantz, who has done extensive research in the
villages next to Lake Victoria, makes a valuable comment about the easiness with
which it is accepted that the suffering of some is inevitable when the world trails the
path to development:
The study relates to a more general problem concerning groups of
people who, amidst the national and international quest for
development, become dispensable in favor of “the majority” or general
national interest. Development interpreted as modernization demands
that the immediate interests of what seem like small minorities are
forgone for the benefit of the whole.73
What actually happens is that the aid agencies present on the ground act
within the framework of the dominant development discourse. According to this, the
main goal to be pursued by Tanzania is overall economic growth, which will
eventually trickle down to improve the condition of all categories of Tanzanians.
Economic growth is to be achieved through such strategies as industrialization and
focus on international trade through promoting exports and foreign investments. At
the local level, this is reflected in support given to large-scale industrial activities
rather than small-scale individual endeavors. Examples of measures taken by the
Tanzanian government to sustain export activities were provided above in this paper.
Once it is accepted that the government focuses on the promotion of industrial
development, only the aid agencies are left to support local small-scale activities and
72
“There is a sense in which rapid economic progress is impossible without painful adjustments.
Ancient philosophies have to be scrapped; old social institutions have to disintegrate; bonds of caste,
creed and race have to burst; and large numbers of persons who cannot keep up with progress have to
have their expectations of a comfortable life frustrated.” (United Nations, Department of Social and
Economic Affairs, Measures for the Economic Development of Underdeveloped Countries, 1951).
42
address some of the negative consequences of the national and international economic
strategies.74 Unfortunately, not even the aid agencies manage to achieve this end. The
problem is that, while the aid agencies claim they address local problems with locallevel solutions, there is a gap between rhetoric and practice. The aid agencies are used
to translating local-level solutions into helping local communities to become more
industrialized and more technologically educated.
Aid agencies working in the villages on the shores of Lake Victoria mainly
promote advanced techniques of fishing, in line with the wide-held belief that the
technologically advanced ways are more productive. At this point, it is important to
mention that studies conducted in the region have shown that it is actually smallscale, artisanal fishing that has proven more effective.75 In spite of this, aid agencies
direct their funds to acquiring trawlers, freezing units and motorized transport for the
villages, instead of buying long lines for the individual fishers.76 In addition, the
training sessions that they organize are to teach villagers how to use the advanced
technologies, rather than to train them in more basic skills. In this way, sometimes
paradoxical situations are created where a young fisher is trained in advanced fishing
techniques but can only afford to buy a very thin line with which he cannot fish the
larger fish that populate the lake nowadays. Only some of the better-off fishermen
are able to take advantage of both the training and the few advanced pieces of gear
73
Marja Liisa Swantz, “Grassroots Strategies and Directed Development in Tanzania: The Case of the
Fishing Sector,” Wider Working Papers, World Institute for Development Economics, Research of the
United Nations University (August 1989).
74
I am not discussing organizations of local communities here, mainly because grassroots
organizations are not common in Tanzania. As anthropological research suggests, the local culture is
permeated by a sense of disempowerment, there is an expectation that either the government or God are
in charge of people’s fate (Wilson, Swantz).
75
A Small Industry Development Organization SIDO report in 1980 showed that output per unit of
investment in the small-scale producers was about five times as high as in the large-scale sector.
Moreover, village smiths are said to produce both better quality and cheaper tools, modeled to shapes
that are familiar to the villagers (quoted in Swantz).
76
Marja Liisa Swantz, “Grassroots Strategies and Directed Development in Tanzania: The Case of the
Fishing Sector,” Wider Working Papers, World Institute for Development Economics, Research of the
United Nations University (August 1989).
43
available in the villages. The poorer fishers end up depending on either the better-off
ones or on the processing companies: “a patron-client relationship was created as the
traders who invested in boats and gear were in the position to act as patrons and give
loans to poor fishermen and customers (…) large-scale fishing is organized and done
by external, often urban owners of boats, engines, sails, nets, etc., who capture most
of the catch.”77 Finally, there are a number of fishers that were completely eliminated
from the trade and the type of investments made by the aid agencies (in training of
high skills and in advanced gear) does not help to reintegrate them. The same can be
said about the effect of aid activities on the lives of the women that used to be
involved in the processing and marketing of the smaller fish and that are now left out
of the business.
This paper presents a moderate view on aid agencies, stating that, in spite of
good intentions, they do not manage to achieve what they planned because of the
general framework of development within which they work. There are authors that
make more radical criticisms of aid agencies however. An example is the analysis that
James Ferguson makes of the activity of aid agencies in Lesotho.78 One of the
strongest points Ferguson makes in this book is that agencies are more interested in
the perpetuation of their own activities, which they pursue whether they are able to
fulfill the development goals they set for themselves or not. Even more, the author
argues that the agencies use the financial resources granted to them by donors for the
building up of the infrastructure needed for their own activities and for paying their
own staff, rather than transmitting the money to the needy people. Within this logic,
the aid agencies appear as apparatuses that continue to function out of inertia, for the
77
Idem 76.
James Ferguson, “The Anti-Politics Machine. <Development,> Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic
Power in Lesotho” (London: University of Minnesota Press, 1997).
78
44
sake of self-perpetuation, sometimes even at the expense of the people they are
supposed to help.
Ferguson talks about the creation of a “development industry, employing
expatriate consultants and <experts> by the hundreds, and churning out plans,
programs, and, most of all, paper, at an astonishing rate.”79 The author bases his
criticism of development agencies on the neo-Marxist and dependency theory
literature on development and, more particularly, on the following premises:
(1) poverty is not a sui generis fact or a consequence of global
scarcity but only a symptom of powerlessness; (2) international aid
projects by their very nature, whoever they claim to <target,> do
not make the radical changes in political and economic structures
that could alone empower the poor; therefore (3) aid projects
cannot be expected to help eradicate poverty since they only
reinforce the system which in the first place causes the poverty.80
Ferguson explains that the aid agencies are just a part of that reality whose current
functioning causes specific categories of people to be excluded; rather than being a
cure, as they claim, the aid agencies and their projects, become a part of the problem.
Instead of taking the political stand that it is the moral duty of the governments and
citizens of the world to satisfy the basic needs of the poor and ensure their integration
in society, the development apparatus functions like “an anti-politics machine,”
promoting a “colonizing, expanding bureaucratic power that expands its reach and
extends its distribution.”81 It is also worth mentioning that Ferguson does not want to
give the impression that aid agencies work intentionally for specific interests, but
rather that they almost automatically perpetuate patterns of social organization and
domination that they should be altering:
When we deal with planned interventions by powerful parties, however,
it is tempting to see in the discourse and intentions of such parties the
79
James Ferguson, “The Anti-Politics Machine. <Development,> Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic
Power in Lesotho” (London: University of Minnesota Press, 1997): 8.
80
Idem 79: 11.
81
Idem 79: 273.
45
logic that defines the train of events. Such a view, however, inevitably
misrepresents the complexities of the involvement of intentionality with
events. Intentions, even of powerful actors or interests, are only the
visible part of a much larger mechanism through which structures are
actually produced, reproduced, and transformed. Plans are explicit, and
easily seen and understood; conspiracies are only slightly less so. But
any intentional deployment only takes effect through a convoluted route
involving unacknowledged structures and unpredictable outcomes.82
If the current practices of eliminating poverty are not effective, why are they
still in place? Why are neo-liberal policies (and strategies of development relying
heavily on neo-liberal prescriptions) still pursued, in spite of the numerous objections
that have been raised against them, both at the theoretical level and in terms of their
effectiveness on the ground? The next chapter of this thesis will show that the
dominance of these practices is part of a historical trend starting with the colonial rule
and culminating with the complete submission of Tanzania, as a Heavily Indebted
Poor Country, to conditionalities imposed by external actors. This does not imply that
it is only the responsibility of external actors that the country does not manage to deal
with accentuated scarcity. While the next chapter refers to some of the faults
committed by the first post-colonial governments, other factors worth mentioning are
corruption, the influence of the business class on policy-making, the local culture
which inhibits collective action, disempowerment through absolute poverty.
7. The Big Picture
The artificial creation of scarcity on Lake Victoria began under the British
colonial rule. The transformation of Lake Victoria from a common good of the local
community into a source of profit for the colonists does fall in line with the logic of
colonial rule. A mention should be made here that at no point were property rights for
82
Idem 79: 276.
46
the water and its resources assigned. Such rights did not exist before, during, or after
the colonial rule. However, while there were no legal property rights assigned, access
to the water and its resources was distributed according to the capacity of exploiting
them: whoever had the proper gear to fish in the lake would do it, something along the
lines of a first-come-first-served basis. The coming of the colonists to the lake, with
their better and continually improving gear, left less and less room for the local
communities. The lake had been self-sustainable as a source of nourishment for the
local populations. However, when external actors, such as the colonists, interfered in a
powerful way, the balance of this system was broken. The lake could not sustain both
the local communities and the colonists interested in making profit from
commercializing the fish.
Explaining the logic of colonial rule is a complex task that I cannot undertake
in this thesis. Suffice it to say that the Great Powers were able to divide and conquer
parts of the world as a result of their military and economic superiority over the
acquired territories, and with the help of the agreements they had with each other as
regards the spheres of influence. The colonial system served many purposes, one of
them being to better settle the Great Powers in their central positions in the world.
One of the most important reasons for colonial rule though was access to the
resources needed for the perpetuation of the economic might of the powers. The
colonies were fresh sources of raw materials, energy and labor. Seen in this light, the
introduction of the Nile perch in Lake Victoria and the consequent increase in fishing
activities by the colonists were perfectly logical actions aimed at increasing the yield
that the colonists would get out of the ruled lands.
If we want to better understand the relationship between the colonial power
and the colony, we might want to analyze Britain’s system of economic and social
47
organization deeper. I will not engage here in an analysis of capitalism in Britain
though. Still, the acquisition of colonies can be explained through the functioning of
the capitalist activities, dominant in Britain at the time, which constantly need more
raw materials and human resources in order to continue. Such an explanation is
derived from Marx’s analysis of the functioning of the capitalist system. Accounting
for the colonial rule only through the logic of capitalism can be considered
reductionism. While more factors are definitely at stake when explaining such a major
historical development, the economic factor is surely central for an understanding of
the colonial system.
After independence, a return to the “traditional” use of the resources of the
lake could have been expected. The colonists would withdraw and the local fishermen
would return to their old ways. Reality is rarely as simple as basic logical inferences
though. While in the realm of thought, an action gives birth to a sum of consequences
that we can pinpoint and describe, in reality each action produces innumerable
consequences which we cannot even keep track of. Tanzania got its independence at
the beginning of the 1960s. By that time, the Nile perch and the other two commercial
species had been in the lake for a decade. Fishing was done more and more
intensively, sustained by the increasing rate of reproduction of the new species. At
this point, the fish yield was still enough to sustain both the local communities and the
demand from abroad. The fish destined for export was taken to Uganda and Kenya for
processing. The demand for fish fillets from Europe was on the rise, making the
fishing of Nile perch and tilapia highly profitable. Intensive fishing for export would
not stop after independence.
The post-colonial leadership of Tanzania was specifically oriented towards
making the country self-sustainable. President Nyerere was the main figure in the
48
fight for independence. He was an intellectual deeply committed to the cause of
keeping the country free of foreign interference. He thought that the country cannot be
truly independent unless it is economically self-reliant, and he planned to achieve this
through preventing industrialization and focusing on developing agriculture, which
would be done by small rural communities that would be set up to be self-sustainable
in their turn.83 The state would provide some assistance, mainly for education and
health services, but the rural communities, which should represent about 80% of the
country, should be able to largely sustain themselves. Nyerere did not imagine that he
could keep the country outside international trade completely; in order to combine
participation in the international economic system and self-sustainability, he aimed to
diversify the country’s exports and to increase the number of trading partners.
Reading Nyerere, one cannot help but get excited, and this is what actually
happened to many intellectuals that thought that Tanzania would manage to emerge as
a truly independent post-colonial country under the rule of an enlightened leader. Still,
as time passed, the gap between intentions and outcomes widened, once again proving
that there is a big difference between reality and logical thought. Nyerere’s system,
while perfect and beautiful on paper, proved helpless on the ground. What went
wrong? Even a long list such as the one that will follow may not be comprehensive.
Authors discussing this topic usually refer to rising oil prices, increasing prices of
inputs, declining terms of trade for Tanzanian exports, the conflict with Uganda in the
late 1970s, droughts, the role of the international financial institutions in their attempt
to restore macroeconomic balance, governmental policies that encouraged too much
the development of parastatals at the expense of private ventures, corruption, the rise
83
Julius Nyerere, “Freedom and Unity,” Transition, Duke University Press, 1964: 40-45.
49
of one-party rule, and the associated excessive centralization of policy-making, plus
the use of repression by the government.84
To simplify this discussion, we might simply say that a poor country cannot
become self-sustainable overnight in a highly interdependent world. This is even truer
if we think that the country has already an established place in the world system,
namely it belongs to the periphery, and this role dictates the nature of the relationships
between the country and the rest of the world.85 Tanzania remained a potential source
of assets, even after independence. There was still plenty of fish in Lake Victoria,
even after 1962. The companies that were activating on the shores of the lake did not
leave the country together with the colonial government. Neither did the Nile perch
leave the lake. Deep symbolism lies in this parallelism. The fish was planted in the
lake in the 1950s and it is there to stay; it does not belong to the natural ecosystem of
the lake, therefore the consequences that its presence has on the ecosystem cannot be
fully predicted at any point; in the end, the Nile perch ate out many of the smaller,
endemic species, an important factor threatening the environmental sustainability of
the lake; its presence led to fishing beyond the normal capacity of the lake, which is
the other main threat to the sustainability of the lake. In a similar way to the artificial
introduction of the Nile perch in the lake, colonial rule was imposed on Tanzania;
colonial relations were developed between Britain and Tanzania, and their
consequences outlast the effective colonial rule; British and Indian companies are still
the main operators on the lake; Britain is nowadays the main foreign donor for
Tanzania.
84
Marja Liisa Swantz, Aili Mari Trip, What Went Right in Tanzania: People’s Response to Directed
Development (Dar-El-Salaam University Press, 1989): 5-30.
85
Immanuel Wallerstein, Africa, the Politics of Independence: An Interpretation of Modern African
History (New York: Vintage Books, 1961).
50
After independence, Nyerere, acting as the President of the country and the
leader of the one-party system, struggled to implement his self-sustainability strategy.
At the same time, the British fishing companies continued to operate on Lake
Victoria. Nyerere’s main focus was on agriculture and on developing a rudimentary
industry that would allow the country to be free of imports for the basic goods. He
was not focused on getting the foreign companies out of the country, and he had no
interest in stopping fish exports, which were finally a source of income for the other
types of economic activities. The country could not make it without any connections
to international trade, what was at stake was to diversity exports and keep imports at a
minimum.86 Exporting fish was in line with these strategies, especially because the
terms of trade for fillets were likely to stay advantageous, and no capital import was
needed for this activity, given that the foreign companies would bring in their own
gear.
In a sense, the first decades after independence, between the 60s and the 80s,
represented a period when the Tanzanian government had relative control over the
economic policies of the country (once again, as much control as can be possible for a
poor country in a highly interdependent world economic system). This is also in
agreement with dominant thinking on international economics in the Western world.
The decades after the World Wars were a period for the loosening of thinking on
economics. There was an understanding that the wild promotion of deregulation in
economic activity, which characterized the pre-war period, is not without dangers,
neither is it necessarily the best way to deal with economic crises. Keynesian
economics developed policies through which the governments could intervene in the
economy in order to deal with sub-optimal conditions. Development theories
86
Julius Nyerere, “The Transition Profile: Julius Nyerere,” Transition, Duke University Press, 1961:
21-30.
51
emerged, aimed at providing guidance to the poorer states on how to escape this
status.87 In spite of its pursuing a path towards self-sustainability, Tanzania was
receiving foreign aid, and this was deemed acceptable for a newly independent
country. It was expected, both by development thinkers and by the Tanzanian
leadership, that with time and with the good use of this international assistance, the
country would develop and become self-reliant.
By the 80s, everything seems to have changed though. The time for the
Tanzanian government’s autonomy over its economic policies was over, and this
change came about for numerous reasons. Nyerere’s policies did not bring about the
desirable outcomes (Nyerere actually resigned in 1985, although his party remains in
power until today). The country was highly indebted, and the donor countries were no
longer willing to provide as much direct aid. Aid was from now to be granted through
the international financial institutions, namely the IMF and the WB, which were
conditioning the granting of help on strict conditionalities about how to run the
economy. The nature of these institutions themselves had changed over the decades,
and around the 80s they were advocating strict deregulation of the economy, complete
opening up of the domestic markets to international trade, support for the foreign
investors and promotion of export-led strategies of growth. International thinking on
economics starts being dominated by neo-liberalism, which, while it does allow for a
certain degree of governmental intervention in order to provide the proper conditions
for the functioning of the economy, does imply a retrenchment of the state from
economic policies as compared to the Keynesian period. In fact, neo-liberal
prescriptions for the Third World may be better translated not in an overall reduction
of intervention in the functioning of the economy, but in a limitation of the role of the
87
Albert O. Hirschman, A Bias for Hope: Essays on Development and Latin America, Chapter 1 (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1971).
52
national government over the economy, to be gradually replaced by regulations of the
international financial institutions: “international financial institutions and other
external forces are usually credited with the rise of neoliberal hegemonic
constellations in the developing world. Adopting neoliberal agendas for export
orientation reversed a century-old pattern of developing countries strategies…”88
In terms of the management of the resources of Lake Victoria, this
transformation was translated in the introduction of measures of support for the
fishing/ processing/ exporting companies operating on the shores of the lake. They
were perceived as foreign investors and received assistance from the state, under the
predicament that their export activities would lead to the economic growth of the
country, which in turn would cause the gradual improvement of the condition of all
Tanzanian citizens. The introduction of export-promotion measures coincided with a
boom in the Nile perch population in the lake: the fish was brought to the lake in the
50s, but only in the 80s did it fully dominate the population of the lake and the species
developed to a considerable size, very attractive for export. As a response to the
explosion of the size of the perch and to the benefits they received from the state,
companies increased their fishing in the lake. Processing plants were opened on the
Tanzanian shores of the lake only in the 80s. The lake became less and less
accommodating for small scale fishing of endemic species done by artisanal fishers
for the local markets. The long-term consequences of the introduction of the perch
were starting to be felt in the 80s, and they were accelerated by the exponential
increase in the industrial exploitation of the lake.
The story of the 1980s continues in the same vein until the present. At the
moment, warning signs are raised that, at the current rate of exploitation of its
88
Dieter Plehwe, Bernhard Walpen, Gisela Neunhoffer, “Reconsidering Neoliberal Hegemony.
Introduction.” In Neoliberal Hegemony, ed. Dieter Plehwe, Bernhard Walpen, Gisela Neunhoffer: 1-23.
53
resources, the lake is not sustainable on the long run. Its ecosystem has been severely
altered, and it is doubtful whether the species inhabiting it can perpetuate at a rate
high enough to make up for the intensive fishing in the lake. At the same time, most
of the fish collected from the lake goes to the markets abroad, leaving only the
carcasses for the nourishment of the riparian population. In addition, there is great
poverty among certain parts of the local communities, especially among the people
excluded from the fish trade, such as artisanal fishers and women processors.
While it is clear that there is scarcity in the area, there is no reason to believe
that the trends creating it will be reversed. The country pursues strategies of economic
growth that are focused on export-promotion, meaning that the fishing companies are
encouraged to fish in the lake and bring the merchandise out of the country, in the
hope that the incomes Tanzania gets from these activities will lead to economic
growth. There is no major discussion of trying to come up with biological fixes for the
altered ecosystem of the lake (what new species to introduce now in the lake in order
to come up with a “natural fix” for the overdrawing of the lake?). The aid agencies
that are supposed to help the impoverished members of the local communities are
giving them technical training, which they can only use on advanced gear they cannot
afford. There is talk about including the local fishers in the management of the lake,
but the local culture does not seem to leave much room for such strategies of comanagement: the villagers believe that their future and the future of the lake will be
decided by either God or the government; they do not trust themselves or each other
to manage the lake. Neither can the villagers accept limits to the number of fishers
allowed in the lake, because of their deeply engrained belief that the lake belongs to
everyone.89 While the villagers continue to believe that the waters and fish are for all,
89
Douglas C. Wilson, “Fishers’ Attitudes Towards Management on Lake Victoria: Preliminary
Findings,” Michigan State University. Copy of article provided by author.
54
and that God will decide, the Western companies know that the waters and the fish are
for those who can do the fishing. They take advantage of governmental subsidies and
keep buying improved gear to fish better and more. They know that while the lake
still has resources, they should be used: carpe diem is the norm in the West.
8. Conclusion
Economist thinking, growth strategies based on industrialization and open
trade, and development have been in place ever since they were established in spite of
their failure to bring about generalized well-being. However, this type of thinking
about economic and social organization is not inevitable. Not only is it not inevitable,
it may on occasion be detrimental to human well being. Still, the voices arguing
against neo-liberalism have a more marginal position in the public sphere than its
proponents. This is true about thinking on international economics done both inside
Tanzania and by Western intellectuals and decision-makers. The profit-oriented
activities of businesses could only be limited by a strong concentration of voices
arguing for the limitation of their actions. But there is no such concert of views.
There are many arguments to be made against the factual domination of everexpanding markets on the organization of economic and social relations. One of the
stronger cases made by a contemporary thinker is that of John Gray, Professor of
European Thought at London School of Economics. According to him, economic
growth through the current dominant strategy of combining industrial production with
continuous market expansion is not sustainable. On the one side, the use of fossil
energy for the fuelling of industrial activity leads to environmental depletion and to
rivalry among countries for access to energy sources. In addition, industrial
production at such a large scale causes irreparable environmental damage. In Gray’s
own words, “The conjunction of intensifying scarcity in energy supplies with
55
accelerating climate change is the other face of globalization. It poses a large question
mark over (…) the belief that the main problem with globalization is that it is
incomplete, for it suggests that completing it may not be feasible.”90
If the current strategies of economic growth and development are not
sustainable for the Western world, it is even less likely that they represent the panacea
for the Third World. Gray is adamant that this kind of economic practices could never
be generalized in the Third World: “The current phase is only the extension to the
wider world of the industrial revolution that began in England a couple of centuries
ago, but already it is destabilizing the environmental systems on which all industrial
societies depend. Extending the energy-intensive lifestyle of the rich world to the rest
of humankind would have an even more destabilizing impact.”91
The truth is that it is not the main concern of the Western world to give the
Third World a share of the benefits of the functioning of the current economic world
system. The main concern of the Western world is to ensure its own well being, and
sometimes it does so at the expense of the Third World. As has been stressed before
in this thesis, this should not be seen necessarily as a conspiracy of the rich to
impoverish the poor, but rather as a result of the interactions between actors placed in
different positions of power in the global system. Daniel Cohen, the author of a recent
book on globalization, makes a similar point: “To understand today’s globalization,
requires that one renounces the idea that the poor are stunted or exploited by
globalization.”92 As Gray himself explains, “the poor of the world are not so much
exploited, as neglected or forgotten.”
90
91
John Gray, “The Global Delusion,” New York Review of Books 53(7) (April 2006).
Idem 90.
92
Daniel Cohen, Globalization and Its Enemies, MIT Press (reviewed by Gray in “The Global
Delusion”).
56
The analysts that criticize the current functioning of the economic system as
detrimental to the environment or to social equity have a hard time in trying to come
up with alternatives. For one thing, they admit that the capitalist system is dominant
and that a replacement is not in sight. John Gray argues that humanity can come up
with ways to make up for some of the damages caused by the current manner of the
functioning of the economy (through technology), but he does not propose a more
comprehensive solution. Neither are the post-development thinkers who argue for the
dismantling of the idea of development as a whole capable or willing to propose an
alternative. Some of these questions are too difficult to answer, but perhaps it is
possible to mark down a few starting points for an eventual solution.
One of these starting points could be found in the previous discussion of
socially constructed scarcity. It has been shown in this thesis how the scarcity of
water resources has been gradually socially constructed, from the moment when the
ecosystem of the lake began to be seen as a potential source of material gain. In this
light, a possible starting point for alleviating scarcity is the re-conceptualization of
these elements. Neo-liberalism is dominant nowadays although it is not the only
manner of reading economic relations, neither perhaps the most beneficial. The use of
nature for profit-oriented capitalist activities is neither the "natural" nor the
"inevitable" way of perceiving reality. Rather, this is just one of the treatments we
give to the reality around, a treatment that has proven to be highly destructive in
specific situations, such as the exploitation of Lake Victoria. If this thinking is not
unique and inevitable, and if it is also destructive, then it must be changed. Rather
than continuing to see water and its ecosystem as material resources to be traded like
merchandise on the market, they should be re-conceptualized as common goods,
pertaining to the basic right of every human being to proper water and food. In fact,
57
this re-conceptualization merely means a return to the original understanding of water
and its resources as belonging to the local communities, as the center around which
they build their lives.
The latest World Water Forum,93 taking place in Mexico City in March 2006,
promoted this type of understanding of water (to be expanded to water-related
resources). This can be seen from the final ministerial declaration issued at the end of
the forum, “The Mexico Declaration,” according to which,
1. Water is not merchandise or a fixed resource. Water has
social, economic, and environmental value. Water is an
essential resource and a public good.
2. We seek that each of our local actions will reunite in a
global compromise, by virtue of which all human beings,
regardless of their place of birth or where they live, are
recognized the right to water as an essential right.”94
The conclusion of the ministers is supported by a similar statement of the mayors
present at the encounter. In their declaration, the mayors assert that freshwater is a
scarce and endangered resource, essential to life, and that it is a “common good
belonging to all humankind.” They also stress that all people have the right to water in
“the quantity and quality required to meet their essential needs.” 95
These documents are not novel in their understanding of water as an essential
resource that should be made available to everyone. Such a conception has started to
appear in international agreements since the 1960s, a few examples of which are the
following: the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights
(1966), the European Charter of the Council of Europe (1968) and its revised version,
the European Charter on Water Resources of the Council of Europe (2001), the
93
The World Water Forum is a yearly meeting of member of civil society and politicians (the highest
level represented being the ministerial) to discuss the problem of water scarcity and solutions to it.
94
http://www.worldwaterforum4.org.mx/files/declaration_leg.pdf IV Foro Mondial del Agua.
Encuentro Mundial de Legisladores del Agua.
58
United Nations Conference on Human Environment (1972), the United Nations
Millennium Declaration (2000), the Ministerial Declaration from the Second World
Water Forum (The Hague, 2002), the resolution of the United Nations General
Assembly declaring 2003 the International Year of Freshwater (2003), the
Johannesburg Declaration of Sustainable Development, the Charter on Essential
Services, and the Local Government Declaration to the World Summit on Sustainable
Development (2002).
Hopefully, all these international agreements mark the beginning of an
ideological change that will place water and similar basic necessities of human life
outside of the framework of capitalistic logic. When he was talking about the
emergence of capitalism and the associated liberal economic ideology in the 16th
century, Karl Polanyi was also describing the corresponding spontaneous reaction of
society to protect itself from the destructive forces of wild capitalism. Polanyi
introduced the notion of a “double movement:”
the one was the principle of economic liberalism, aiming at the
establishment of a self-regulating market, relying on the support of the
trading classes, and using laissez-faire and free trade as its methods;
the other was the principle of social protection aiming at the
conservation of man and nature as well as productive organization,
relying on the varying support of those most immediately affected by
the deleterious action of the market—primarily, but not exclusively,
the working and the landed classes—and using protective legislation,
restrictive associations, and other instruments of intervention as
methods.96
More than half a century later, Polanyi’s son, building up on the father’s
thoughts, argues that the second wave of the wild spread of capitalism comes in the
current era of globalization (fuelled by neo-liberal ideology), and that a response of
95
Local Government Declaration on Water. On the Occasion of the Fourth World Water Forum,
Mexico, 21 March 2006. http://www/worldwaterforum4.org.mx/files/dec_autlocales.pdf.
96
Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation. The Political and Economic Origins of our Time (Boston:
Beacon Press, 1944): 76.
59
the self-protecting social forces will soon build up.97 The issue of secure access to
sufficient water and food is a likely arena for resistance to the unchecked growth of
the markets. The re-conceptualization of essential resources and basic human rights
should be part of the ideology of a social reaction. The continuation of this fight is to
take place at all levels of social life, from political classes to grassroots movements:
We conclude that the contradictions between the requirements of the
capitalist economy for unlimited expansion and the requirements of
people to live in mutually supportive relations cannot be resolved
without a civilizational change to transform institutions governing
economic life. This is a long-term process, but in the history of
humanity, the past two centuries of industrial capitalism are a moment
(…) Many non-profit initiatives of civil society are examples of social
solidarity based on cooperation, not competition, on association, not
individual gain. Important as they are, however, they cannot substitute
for democratic control of the state which remains essential to the
organization of economic livelihood in a modern society in the North
as in the South.98
This re-conceptualization of scarcity, resources, and other market institutions
and instruments does seem to call for the introduction of morality in the realm of
economics and politics. On the one hand, bringing morality into politics should not
be feared. Politics and morality belong together if the good balance is found. On the
other hand, in some parts of the world, perhaps the “civilizational change” that Kari
Polanyi talks about is not even necessary. Anthropologists note that people living in
fishers’ villages in Tanzania have never ceased to entangle economic activities with
community values. In fact, resorting to the social ties is sometimes their only
survival route in the face of radical scarcity.99 In our search for grand development
97
Karl Polanyi Levitt, “The Transformation of the World System: Some Insights to the Work of Karl
Polanyi,” Inaugural Lecture, International Conference on Development and Regionalism, November
2004, Budapest. http://artsandscience.concordia.ca/polanyi/pdfs/Kari-Budapest-2004.pdf.
98
Idem 97.
99
“It has been my intention to take up various aspects of the coastal people’s lives which demonstrate
that they have found ways to resist being subsumed by the wider society and thereby losing their own
cultural and social identity. They have used the very same cultural means at their disposal in building
their defenses, thereby creating values which give meaning and continuity to life” (Marja Liisa
Swantz).
60
strategies, we would better start from respecting the every-day acts of the people
themselves.
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