A Sea Change : Unpacking the different conceptualisations of fisheries development in Eastern Africa

Sammanfattning: The global narratives behind development aid are constantly changing, but aid is still criticized for being ineffective. The most recent trend within development thinking is the push for complexity science concepts to be incorporated, in order to better capture the uncertainties and dynamics of the real world. Fisheries is a sector of development where priorities are changing and there are multiple approaches being advocated with no current consensus. The ways institutions and individuals think about the fisheries development system will therefore have implications for project implementation on the ground. In this study, I use the World Bank as a focal organisation to investigate how institutions and individuals conceptualise the fisheries development system in Eastern Africa, and whether this aligns with complexity thinking. I find a clear shift in the institutional paradigm of the World Bank from a narrow sectoral approach with tangible interventions such as infrastructure, to a more holistic approach pushing for softer solutions such as stakeholder engagement. I map the conceptualisations of a number of implementers of fisheries development projects in Tanzania and Kenya in relation to the World Bank paradigms and find that the actors have a wide range of perceptions, not necessarily buying into the current World Bank paradigm or agreeing with each other. Differing conceptualisations of fisheries development has implications for project implementation and the policy coherence of aid that is currently being pushed by the Paris Declaration of Aid Effectiveness and the Accra Agenda for Action. I also find evidence of complexity science concepts expressed by the implementers and the World Bank, with more concepts expressed in the current World Bank paradigm. It is encouraging to see actors and institutions incorporate complexity concepts into their thinking, although further work is needed to fully embed the paradigm into fisheries development.