The Department of Fisheries has adopted a digital platform that will be used for data collection and fish catch monitoring.
The platform, called Electronic Catch Assessment Survey (Ecas), has been developed by the department using technical and financial support from Restoring Fisheries for Sustainable Livelihoods (Refresh) Project.
Refresh Chief of Party Daniel Jamu said it has taken them about three years to develop the system.
“The other issue was the accuracy of the data collected. Some of the data were not collected right at the beach and the number of people who were supposed to be involved in the sampling was small. So, we wanted to address these two gaps by working with the Department of Fisheries in developing the digital application,” he said.
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Jamu said a recent study indicated that the country caught about 198,000 tonnes of fish in 2022, which translates to about K200 billion, but he was quick to say this could be an underestimation.
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“In a way, we also feel that this system will help us combat the use of illegal gear because, through this system, we also collect data on the number of fishers and the gear they are using,” he said.
Director of Fisheries Hastings Zidana was elated with the development. He said this is in line with the direction the government has taken to digitalise services.
“We were using paper-based data and you know the challenges; you can easily lose it and it takes time to process it. With this digital method, we will be able to estimate properly the resources we have on the lake and the revenue that the country would be able to collect,” he said.
Fisheries is an important sector to Malawi’s economy, contributing about four percent to gross domestic product, providing nearly 33 percent of the protein intake of Malawi’s population and supporting the livelihoods of nearly 1.6 million lakeshore community members.
