Project Timeframe (August 2008 – August 2010)

About the project

The coast of the Western Indian Ocean (WIO) is home to about 36 million people – or 25% of the total population. Coastal resources are vital to local communities and indigenous people, many of whom live in abject poverty. As a result, coastal resources are a key component to the livelihoods of poor coastal communities. In addition to the many ecological goods and services provided by the coast, it also enables many economic and cultural benefits due to activities such as fisheries, mining, tourism and forestry that take place in the coastal zone and beyond.

Although coastal regions provide invaluable benefits, the extent to which these are shared amongst different stakeholders varies between countries, locations and sectors. Moreover, the growing integration of the world economy, while providing many opportunities for economic and income growth, has also seen a massive increase in economic inequality both within, and between, countries. Hand in glove with such trends has been a growing incidence in absolute levels of poverty, despite substantial growth in the global economy. Power imbalances between different stakeholder groups, between producers and retailers, and between developing and industrialized countries, play a major role in determining such discrepancies, combined with a complex array of technological, market and political factors.

Understanding economic imbalances between stakeholders, and identifying strategies to more fairly distribute benefits amongst the poor, provides an important avenue to reduce poverty amongst coastal communities. For example, research over the past decade on the co-management of coastal and fisheries resources has begun to highlight the power imbalances that exist amongst coastal users and other stakeholders involved in resource use and management, and the need for alternative governance arrangements that involve users in planning and decision-making.

Although equitable benefit sharing is a recurring theme in many sectors (e.g. health, trade, biodiversity conservation, etc), there is no agreed common definition for the term and the formula for equitable benefit sharing. In broad terms it is generally taken to mean the equitable distribution of benefits, based on principles of fairness, justice and ethical considerations. How it is applied in practice depends in part on what type of resources the concept is being applied to, the economic sectors involved, and the international and national policies within which these are located. This project provides an opportunity to apply the concept of benefit sharing to coastal resources and to elucidate appropriate distribution mechanisms, as well as the obstacles preventing greater benefit distribution

Goals and Objectives

The primary goal of this research is to contribute towards poverty reduction and sustainable resource use and management by promoting the application of the principle of access and equitable sharing of benefits derived from coastal resources generally, and more specifically, in the Western Indian Ocean region.

The objectives of the study are to:
1.Identify common principles and approaches for benefit-sharing in a diversity of sectors, as well as from a range of different ecosystems.
2.Map different types of coastal resources used by coastal communities and benefits accrued from these resources.
3.Identify and document beneficiaries of coastal resources and the ways in which they exploit, use and benefit from the resources, their origin and history of use.
4.Map the existing mechanisms for benefit sharing of coastal resources
5.Assess gender roles and their implications on coastal resource management and benefit sharing.
6.Identify and review institutions and the legal framework governing access and benefit sharing of coastal resources and highlight strengths and weaknesses.
7.Propose a framework for equitable benefit sharing of coastal resources and sustainable management of the resources

Case Studies

This study will be undertaken in South Africa and Tanzania, where two case study communities will be chosen from each country. Case studies from Mozambique will enhance this analysis. The criteria for case study selection include:
a) The area must include a poor or marginalised coastal community;
b) There should be a diversity of sectors active within the community (e.g. fisheries, forestry, tourism, and/or mining);
c) There should have been some attempt to set in place redistribution within the community to enable greater equity and benefit sharing; and
d) Each country should ensure that the case studies include examples of initiatives that involve the state and communities, the private sector and communities and a combination of these.

South African case studies

• Sokhulu community