INSIGHTS INTO THE POLITICAL (DIS)ECONOMY OF LAKE NASSER FISHERY DEVELOPMENT

摘要

About 8000 fishers are operating today in the Lake Nasser's fishery (Egypt) and the annual official landing varies between 12,000 and 15,000 tons. Despite this relatively modest importance, the Egyptian authority decided to embark in a reform of the Lake Nasser fishery in the early 2000s. The objective of the present article is to analyze the evolution of this reform. For this, we use a political economy perspective. Our analysis shows that, while some major institutional changes have undeniably resulted from the reform, those have little to do with a 'liberalisation' as conventionally understood in neoclassical literature. Instead, the new status quo that resulted from the reorganization of the fishery turns out to be one where the central government and its parastatal agencies have managed to maintain their existing advantages. This failure to reform the system led the fishers and fish traders to develop a massive parallel smuggling 'industry' (black market) which trades a substantial amount offish through unofficial channels.