Fisheries

A broad range of circumstances and factors affect women and policy initiatives and plans to deal with these must be broad, integrated and directed at issues rather than at sectors . The importance of women to family welfare and national development must be recognised by relevant government agencies, which in turn must ensure adequate and appropriate resource allocation. Many times, development plans are geared towards the national interest and often the needs of the national government may not be the same as those of the rural dweller. Also, most of the revenue generated from the rural areas goes to cater for the growing needs of an urban based community, making the gap widen each year.
It is important that primary resource developments be planned side by side with an understanding of how the society works, and what forestry, fisheries and agriculture mean to the majority of rural dwellers. The rural dwellers, especially women, should take part in all stages. It is significant that all national fisheries policies up to now have concentrated on exploiting fish for sale. The last two national plans include objectives such as maxirnising the economic returns from the exploitation of marine resources. promote the rational exploitation of marine resources.
promote and encourage the growth of the private sector. and the Fisheries Departments work has concentrated on efforts to establish coastal fisheries as a commercially viable activity determine resource availability available for commercial exploitation, promote technical training [to harvest fish stocks improve fishing techniques for more efficient harvesting and investigate aquaculture possibilities for raising commercially valuable shellfish. Womens fishing activities are not seen as economically productive.