The lake basin communities faces a myriad of environmental and economic challenges. Of the many challenges, ECOVIC has prioritise a few that it is currently involved in. These are:
Fisheries management has for many years been a major challenge. The fishery has witnessed ever reducing stocks due to over fishing, use of poor fishing methods and gears and general poor fishing practices e.g. non observance of closure periods.
ECOVIC realizes that the communities have played a major role in escalating these problems. This has been the result of the community failure to reclaim ownership of the resource in the misguided belief that it was government property free for all.
ECOVIC is coming in to bring back the sense of ownership among the communities. It is doing this by undertaking the following activities:
POST HARVEST FISH HANDLING
Post harvest fish loss especially for dagaa is one of worrying concerns in the lake zone. It is estimated that between 50 –70% of dagaa catches are spoilt during wet and less sunny days. In even less occasion are the spoilt fish used as animal feed. This has double effect. Loss of dearly needed revenue and wastage of good nutritious food in a community where malnutrition is rising and the value of other fish species are out of reach of the larger community.
ECOVIC through its networks has recognized simple local technologies used for Dagaa preservation among certain communities in the basin and others outside the basin. The strategy now is to introduce the technologies to communities that require them. To this end ECOVIC is planning and/or involved, to a limited extend though due to financial constraints, in the following:
The livelihood of the communities of the lake basin has for a long time depended on the lake. With the dwindling fisheries resource, over dependence on fisheries is becoming highly unsustainable. This position is strengthen by the rising food insecurity situation in the lake zone coupled with increasing poverty.
To rescue the situation, efforts must now be directed in others viable income generating activities. Such activities are numerous and very viable in the basin yet rarelypracticed largely due lack of awareness.
ECOVIC has recognize the following activities as some of the viable alternative income generating activities in the lake basin
As a first step ECOVIC has identified and clustered groups currently involved in these activities in the entire lake basin. Others shall include
Despite the basin being located next to the world’s second largest fresh water lake, it lacks safe drinking water worth mentioning. There is always the larking risk of water borne diseases and use of bottled water is becoming a fashionable practice among the rich. The poor ,who are the majority, are left to consume the contaminated water, subsequently they frequent hospitals after attacks by water borne diseases and spent much if not all of their hard earned income, on treatment which in many cases is inadequate.
ECOVIC has recognized this as a major challenge and has/will employed the following strategies
The prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS in the lake basin is one of the highest in the rest of East Africa. Available data show that HIV/AIDS awareness level is however quite high, about 95% yet a behaviour change towards personal protection is minimal.
ECOVIC recognises that most of its target group, the fisherfolk are the most affected. Since the fisherfolk form the larger membership of ECOVIC, it is believed that by involving this membership in efforts to fight the scourge, significant achievement is possible. ECOVIC strategy is to fight for behavioural change toward responsible sexual life and living. Specifically, ECOVIC is committedly fighting for:
A major challenge facing community based organisations and cooperatives,which hinder their progress is lack of management and programmatic skills among the leadership. This handicap is so in-depth that most organization and self help groups with viable economic plans collapse or merely become docile. With this situation, no serious economic advancement is possible among the larger community.
ECOVIC has recognized this and has put in place the following measures:
However, the efforts are still in a very small scale and less in-depth.
The basin communities are usually, or are suppose to be the end users of information generated from them for them or programmes designed for the development. More often than not, information is generated , documented but never communicated back to the communities- the assumed end users.
Furthermore, many programmes especially national and regional, are often designed and implemented in the communities without consultating them. The usual excuse has been lack of a community institutional arrangement through which the views of the community could be sourced.
ECOVIC can create this channel. Through ECOVIC
1)information from generating sources should reach the communities.
2)The views of the communities on various issues affecting them in the entire basin can be sought. Where such views are not readily available ECOVIC could easily facilitate a forum through which the views could be generated.
Deforestation in the lake basin is currently of grave concern. Since poverty levels in the basin are very high, many people rely on wood as source of fuel, unable to afford other sources. This demand puts undue pressure on the little forest cover that still remains. However, life must continue and wood fuel will still remain the main source of fuel for sometime until probably, the economy of the people improves.
This position creates a worrying situation as wood must be generated somehow.
ECOVIC has recognized this community dilemma and has undertaken to initiate the following:
One of the biggest challenge to ECOVIC is resource mobilization for its programmes. Efforts must be made to improve the resource base as a matter of priority. We thus call upon willing partners to join us in these efforts.