2. Introduction

2.1 Focusing aquaculture on poverty alleviation

Small-scale aquaculture and aquatic resource management are fundamental to the livelihoods of many of the rural poor in Asia. There is growing evidence that in many cases the poorer people are, the greater their dependence on aquatic resources, particularly low-value fish and non-fish aquatic resources.

With recent shifts in development thinking there is a growing emphasis on poverty alleviation in the aquatic resource sector (as indicated in the Bangkok Declaration of the Conference on Aquaculture in the Third Millennium). This is at least partly in recognition of the failures of previous development interventions to adequately address the needs of the poor but also in recognition of the further potential that aquaculture holds for poverty alleviation.

Often the aquatic resource sector has had only a partial understanding of poverty alleviation, while at the same time, the poverty alleviation sector has had a limited understanding of the significance of aquatic resources in rural livelihoods and the potential aquatic resources interventions hold for poverty alleviation.

In considering strategic priorities for poverty alleviation the technologies for small-scale aquaculture are now largely in place. While there is a continuing need for adaptive, small-scale technological development in order to meet the needs of poor people the main requirements are:

• How to extend these technologies to poor people,
• How to create opportunities for poor people to derive livelihood benefits, including from management of wild fisheries, and common aquatic resources
• How to ensure development institutions are more responsive to the needs of poor people.

Rather than thinking in terms of aquaculture development, the emphasis now is on aquaculture for development. In order to effectively address poverty alleviation, poverty and poor people's livelihoods need to be placed as the starting point for intervention, with small-scale aquaculture and aquatic resource management one of a number of strategic tools for achieving this objective. This clearly has significant implications for how poverty alleviation interventions are to be conceptualised, and how aquaculture should be integrated with other activities.

Children often play a role in aquaculture and fishing activities.

Poverty alleviation and development are not purely technical and managerial issues. In order to address poverty alleviation and development effectively, we need a better understanding of poverty and poor people's livelihoods, and of what development means. Any intervention must be based on a sound strategic understanding of the factors that make people poor, and of the ways in which poor people can use and derive benefits from aquatic resources.

2.2 Understandings of poverty

There are many dimensions to poverty and correspondingly many strategies to address poverty alleviation. People are poor in different ways, in different places and at different times.

Over recent years there have been considerable shifts in thinking about poverty. At the same time there have been significant changes in thinking about aquaculture and aquatic resources, and how aquaculture can contribute to poverty alleviation. Some of these trends are summarised in Box 1.

Increasingly poverty is not seen solely in terms of deficiencies in production and income, but also in terms of wider social factors that limit poor people's access to and control over their resource base, and limit their ability to convert resources into positive livelihood outcomes.

Poor people may be poor for many reasons, not merely as a result of a lack of resources, but out of weak entitlements to convert resources into livelihood outcomes - for example, low or volatile prices or lack of market demand for poor people's products.

Understanding how people convert resources into outcomes requires an understanding of how individuals fit into households, and into the wider social arenas in which they operate - arenas of community, markets and state. For example understandings of the significance of gender within households have illustrated how in some cases women and girl children may not have access to nutritional benefits within the household, despite increases in household food production. Equally increases in aquaculture production in poor areas may not benefit poor people if they are not able to afford the fish produced. Issues of geographical and cultural remoteness, exclusion, and lack of power in decision-making processes are now increasingly presented as dimensions of poverty to be addressed.

Access to the benefits of planned development (for example, in the form of projects) often is a crucial input to livelihoods. In some cases access to such planned development is regarded by local people as the main factor determining whether they are poor or not. In more hierarchical societies, the wealth and power generated by planned development for certain groups allows them to strengthen their own positions and inequitable structures at the expense of poorer groups. In this way planned development may actually make poor people poorer.

More than just fish - crustaceans, molluscs, amphibians and insects are all collected.

Photo: G. Grepin.

Floodplaines incorporate agriculture and fisheries in a continuum. Fish, aquaculture and agriculture are all linked by the water that surrounds them.

Photo: G. Grepin.

Changes in thinking about poverty have significant impacts for how aquaculture can contribute to poverty alleviation.

These include:

• More emphasis on integrated approaches rather than sectoral approaches
• Identifying opportunities for poor people other than as primary producers (for example, as traders, processors)
• Ensuring technologies are appropriate, low risk and affordable,
• Securing market access for poor people, and markets for poor people's produce,
• Collective interventions, including securing poor people's access to and control over common property resources
• Supporting rights of poor people to participate effectively in development planning

Opportunities for servicing aquaculture - fish cage in Cambodia.

Photo: G. Bizzari

Rather than develop a definition of poverty, the Expert Consultation reviewed a wide range of aspects of poverty that projects represented at the Consultation are addressing, and the strategies that are being adopted. These are summarised in Box 2.

2.3 Understanding the context of poor people's livelihoods

The range of experience represented in the Expert Consultation illustrates the fundamental importance of understanding the context of poor people's livelihoods and the social arenas in which poor people operate as the starting point for poverty focused development initiatives.

Understanding of context is essential in order to:

• Analyse the ways in which people are poor,
• Identify the poorest groups,
• Develop appropriate poverty alleviation strategies.

Poor people are involved in diverse and dynamic livelihoods strategies utilizing a wide portfolio of resources - material, economic, natural, human and social. This diversity is locally specific, and dynamic. Poor people are poor in different ways, and at different times in different places.

There are also structural dimensions to poverty, such as class, patron-client relations. People are poor because of inequitable relations of power, and not merely as a result of shocks such as natural disasters, sudden failures in production. Poverty alleviation is therefore not merely concerned with providing temporary relief from hardship but at addressing deep-rooted, and often complex social processes.

Appropriate development interventions to address poverty alleviation must be based on a thorough understanding of these livelihoods issues. This requires an iterative and learning approach with effective participatory communication and needs to be built into the method of development from the very beginning of project formulation to monitoring and evaluation. Very often these issues have been added on to project activities, rather than forming the basis for interventions.

Poor people face particular constraints to uptake of new technologies and livelihood activities - due to such factors as lack of resources, aversion to risk, uncertainty and vulnerability - all of which limit capacity for long- term planning. As with all other interventions, there are also constraints to entry into aquaculture, but significantly in many contexts aquaculture holds advantages over other economic activities, such as livestock, or other agriculture based activities.