THE REGIONAL ROLE OF LVFO IN PROMOTING SUSTAINABLE FISHERIES UTILIZATION

摘要

Fish is very important to the economies of the three East African Community (EAC) Partner States. Most of the fish comes from Lake Victoria. Fish production potential from the lake is estimated at over 500 000 tonnes valued at US 600 million dollar atthe beach level and US 300 million dollar in export. Most of this fish is exported to the European Union (EU). There are, however, stringent export requirements to the EU market, which have necessitated development of high fish handling and processing standards. These requirements were partly responsible for the bans on fresh fish export from East Africa to EU between 1996 and 2000. The EAC Partner States have an intergovernmental organization, the Lake Victoria Fisheries Organization (LVFO), which ismandated with harmonizing, developing and adopting measures for sustainable utilization of the living resources of Lake Victoria. The LVFO has spearheaded the processes to meet the export fish quality requirements. The Organization initially coordinatedthe efforts that included establishing a regional taskforce (RTF) of experts and later a regional working group (RWG) to provide guidelines for meeting fish quality requirements. The RTF and RWG have so far come up with a Code of Practice (COP) for Fishing and Fish handling in Lake Victoria, the Manual of Standard Operating Procedures (MSOPs) and the Fish Inspectors Guide. The documents are to be adopted and utilized by the Partner States to meet the fish quality assurance and safety requirements. The paper outlines the initiatives undertaken to improve the quality and safety of fish and fishery products from Lake Victoria to meet especially the export market requirements, the challenges in the fishery sector, future plans for research and developmentin the post-harvest sector, and regional efforts to promote communication on fish quality assurance aspects and network of experts in the region.