A Gender Analysis of Participation in Planning for Village Regrouping on Lake Kariba Shoreline (Zambia)

Abstract

Until recently, Lake Kariba fishery like other fisheries in Zambia had been centrally managed by the government through the Department of Fisheries (DoF). Due to some problems of centralized fishery management, such as the high cost of regulation enforcement and high levels of regulation violation by fishers, the government embarked on a consultative process aimed at involving users in making and implementing fishery management decisions. The scattered nature of the fishers' settlement pattern that has developed overtime had to be abandoned to give way to the establishment of permanent, bigger and more organized villages. The involvement of users in making management decisions also required the setting up of local fishery management structures within these villages. This paper looks at the rationale for village regrouping, how men and women participated in the planning process, and the effects of the village regrouping exercise. It also looks at membership in the village level structures in terms of gender.