UK helps hi-tech fishers on International Co-ops Day

05 July 2009

A new system which will allow fishermen and women in Kenya to access real time information on buyers and current selling prices on their mobile phones is one of the projects to benefit from recent £5 million funding from DFID.

Speaking on International Co-Operatives Day, Minister for Trade and Development Gareth Thomas welcomed the project which will help some of the 45,000 fishers and 80,000 traders who rely on fishing in Lake Victoria to make a living. 

Previously, the fishers' income was adversely affected by middlemen fixing prices. The new mobile phone service will bring an end to this by allowing them to receive real time information on the current selling price for fish.

It will also enable them to send texts to advise each other on which fishing sites to avoid and which are profitable. Most of the fishers are under 35 and the greater income and work available through this fund will help to make them less vulnerable to the effects of HIV and AIDS.

This is one of a number of projects across nine countries to be launched recently by Co-Op Africa, which has received £5 million funding from DFID to help communities to work together.

Other schemes to benefit from the funding are a co-operative soybean project in Kenya, set up to provide nutritional food to HIV patients and a refuse collection scheme in Zambian markets which aims to reduce cases of diarrhoea in the area by 75% by the end of this year.

Hailing the success of the project, Minister for Trade and Development Gareth Thomas said:

"In the current economic crisis, co-operatives around the world have a more important role than ever to play in helping to lift people out of poverty.  That's why I am delighted that, on International Co-Operative's Day, I can welcome positive early results of the new Africa Co-Op scheme.

"This money will make a big difference to a number of community projects in developing countries where people are working in co-operatives to create innovative ways of making a decent living.

"For example, a newly-launched mobile phone scheme allows fishermen and women to text each other to compare latest fish prices, thereby putting a stop to exploitation by middlemen who fix false prices."