Multiple and interrelated deficiencies were identified in the foregoing review of current fisheries statistics collection and information management practices in Uganda. Basically these amount to the following:
There are very serious gaps in the UFD's statistical coverage of the country's major fisheries, both in space and time. Many landing sites and marketplaces are not covered at all, due to their widely dispersed and remote locations. Also, basic inventories of landings and markets are lacking, and allocation of UFD staff responsibilities are in some cases unclear. Where monitoring does take place, returns from the field are all too often submitted on an irregular basis, and/or with much delay.
There is a marked lack of uniformity in the mode of data collection from place to place, and from fishery to fishery. Variation in the style and content of enumeration makes it impossible to obtain reliable figures.
Doubts about the quality of data being collected and tabulated at field level are exacerbated by the absence of thorough check-back mechanisms up the line of supervision through the district, regional, and Headquarters levels.
A number of important features of the fishing industry remain unmeasured because no provision is made for them to be regularly monitored either as part of the monthly reporting cycle or through some other set interval scheme.
Arrangements for information storage, retrieval, and dissemination through the UFD registry, publication series, and library facility have deteriorated to an alarming extent and are no longer in effective operation.
Finally, various Government and external aid agencies dealing with issues bearing on the development and management of the fisheries do not sufficiently collaborate with one another, meaning that the national capabilities for research, analysis, and policy and planning formulation are not being effectively utilised.
The shortcomings inherent in the current approach to fisheries data collection, compilation, analysis, and reporting in Uganda are fairly easy to identify. So are the immediate factors which give rise to them. Thus,
The deployment of field staff is in general highly inadequate. In many cases, duty posting arrangements are not rationalised according to the geographical areas to be covered. They may also be outdated, not having been revised to reflect changing realities of the fisheries due to migration of effort, the decline of some landing sites or marketplaces and the growth of others, new cross-border trading routes, etc. Numerous field stations are not up to their full staff establishment, and certain vacant posts within the regional and Headquarters offices have not been provided for either.
Field staff are not provided with sufficient housing and working facilities to encourage the efficient conduct of their duties. Landing sites and marketplaces are often located at widely dispersed and very remote places, and with no provision for conveniently situated housing or for transport to move between duty stations, it becomes impossible to fulfill assigned monitoring and extension responsibilities.
Lack of mobility also poses a severe hindrance to district and regional-level officers when it comes to backstopping staff in the field, or receiving regular, timely status reports from FAs posted at landing sites and marketplaces.
Basic working equipment and office supplies are everywhere lacking. Fisheries Assistants frequently must try to conduct their work without benefit of weighing scales, stationery, and pocket calculators.
There is no standardised approach for UFD staff at station, district, and regional levels to follow in carrying out monitoring and reporting work. Such an approach would involve a common set of items to be enumerated and a common reporting format, all fully understood by the relevant officers. Field staff have received insufficient training and instruction in monitoring and reporting procedures from the Department.
Finally, staff motivation at all levels can be disappointingly poor, as manifested in lax performance of or non-attendance to duties in some instances. In this respect, low levels of remuneration and problems of timely payment of salaries and allowances by Government must be borne in mind.
The fundamental observation to make about the above list is precisely the one made at the very outset, in the Introduction to this report. To a large extent the constraints and problems which hinder the efficient, standardised, and comprehensive management of information on landing site and marketplace activities relate to a severe lack of resources within the UFD. This circumstance is in turn largely a legacy of the years of political and economic turmoil out of which the country is only just emerging.
Like other Government departments, the UFD suffered severe setbacks during the years of internal conflict and maladminstration stretching from the early 1970s to the mid-1980s. These included crippling shortages of operating funds and the loss of personnel, offices, vehicles, equipment, and supplies through acts of war, looting, and vandalism. The ensuing economic disaster exacted a heavy toll on the entire Civil Service -- a development that must be counted amongst the most serious long-term consequences of the war years. With its depleted exchequer and limited capability to raise revenue, Government has so far not been in a position to offer its Civil Servants anything like an adequate level of remuneration during the present period of national recovery and rehabilitation. The negative effect on staff morale and performance, including diligent attendance to duties, has been profound. These effects are no more nor less apparent in the UFD than in other Government departments. It is to be hoped that substantial improvements in conditions of Government service will gradually be realised as part of the country's economic revitalisation programme. To the extent that deficiencies in current fisheries statistics and information management are linked with wider problems inherent to the overall socio-economic and political environment, the ultimate resolution of the former is contingent upon the amelioration of the latter.
Having said all of this, another point made earlier on must nonetheless be reiterated. There have been many commentaries over the years on the problems and weaknesses inherent in fisheries information management within the UFD and its predecessor agency, the Fisheries Section of the Game and Fisheries Department. The similarities between these commentaries, spanning a period of several decades, are remarkable. Sastry's observations (1957) could almost be those of Stoneman's (1969), Karuhanga's (1974), TDRI's (1983), Bernacsek (1987), or those of the present team: basically the same themes have been emphasised over and over again. Suggestions for new and/or upgraded approaches have likewise been numerous and more or less of a common cast, and several undertakings have been mounted in order to effect improvement or rehabilitation. These began as early as 1949 and continued up until the onset of instabilities in the early 1970s. The difficulties plaguing fisheries statistics and information management in Uganda have therefore been chronic, and the fact that successive attempts to resolve them have never been able to succeed for any appreciable length of time ought to occasion some serious self-examination within the various institutions concerned.
The Uganda Fisheries Statistics and Information Systems (FISHIN) Project was designed as a rehabilitation exercise specifically in response to the critical predicament of the UFD following the disruption of the recent past. Through the Project, various measures are to be put into effect to correct the multiple shortcomings in current data and information management as catalogued in the above review. The work programme will be carried out through the existing field and headquarters establishments of the Department, although staff capabilities are being reinforced through the provision of basic equipment (e.g. bicycles, weighing scales, and calculators) and training (e.g., in enumeration skills, data processing, and computer use). The ultimate aim will be to establish, as soon as possible, an integrated and self-sustaining, self-updating information system covering the principal production and socio-economic components of the fisheries within the six Project target regions, encompassing the major fisheries of Lake Victoria and the Kichwamba complex in the west. The model system developed in the Project regions could eventually be applied to the entire country.
Towards this end, a series of initial bio-statistical and socio-economic surveys will be executed. These should involve, as a first priority, a long overdue properly conducted frame survey to establish, carefully and reliably, the current extent of the Victoria and Kichwamba fisheries (i.e. numbers of landings, numbers of active fishing units, etc.). If possible, the water and land approach should be complemented by an aerial census of fishing units. Results of the frame survey would provide a foundation for the implementation of a new system of catch/effort data collection, including a rationalised pattern of staff deployment and universal procedures for data collection and tabulation.
With regard to socio-economic issues, surveys are intended to illuminate salient characteristics of fish landings and fishing communities, transport and on-shore handling facilities, short- and long-range marketing patterns, and fish consumption habits. The exercises should provide an important additional dimension to the country's central fisheries data base. Socio-economic information could be regularly updated in two ways. First, the existing routine monitoring and monthly reporting procedures, appropriately revised and strengthened, could be harnessed to yield a more complete and reliable picture of such basic activities and events in the harvest and post-harvest sectors as: overall catch and effort levels, catch dispositions (fresh vs. processed), prices (ex-canoe, wholesale, and retail levels), and domestic and external market destinations. Secondly, along the lines suggested much earlier by Sastry (1957), a plan could be put in place wherein more comprehensive “calibrating” surveys would occur at regular but longer-term intervals. Perhaps the intervals could be established for every five years -- a quinquennial arrangement. Exact procedures would have to be worked out, but it is anticipated that each designated survey year would be devoted to the conduct of detailed investigations along much the same lines as those to be pursued initially under the FISHIN Project. Thus, each quinquennial survey exercise would yield information to set the monthly routines and annual compilations of data coverage in a wider perspective. Inventories of landings, fishing communities, handling facilities and other infrastructural features would be revised as indicated. Sample surveys of fisherfolk communities and occupational categories (boat owners, crew, processors, traders) as well as fish consumers would provide the basis for analysing trends and changing fortunes in the industry.
The basic elements of the proposed approach are laid out in Fig. 5. Whilst it may seem fairly straightforward on paper, repeated experience with similar undertakings in the country has shown that implementation and sustainabilty are different questions altogether. Any new plan obviously faces numerous pitfalls. Initially, at least, there is provision to minimise the difficulties. The use of standardised forms, categories of enumeration, observation intervals (daily, weekly, or other sampling arrangement) will be established. Fisheries field staff and their supervisors in the project areas will be invited for refresher courses and outfitted with bicycles and motorcycles, so that they can more effectively cover their respective areas of assignment. Basic supplies and some operational funds will also be provided. Modern data processing facilities will be put in place at Fisheries Headquarters, and operators will be trained to handle them. All of this should significantly enhance both the extent and quality of data collected and handled in the short run. It is to be hoped that the Department will be able to mobilise sufficient resources in the years ahead to keep the system in smooth operation. Sustainability is the crux of the matter.
