Fishery employs 17% of Senegal’s workforce and provides 70% of the nation’s animal-based protein. About 90% of the country’s fish are caught by “artisanal” fishers, who rely on traditional methods. Their earnings depend on weather patterns, market prices, access to capital and consumer demand. The initiative aimed to improve fish catch and fish processing capacity by addressing these challenges.
Functionalities of the WISE digital platform include: alert fishers when they cross restricted zones or international borderline; enable fishers to communicate GPS locations with coastguard if stranded on the ocean; provide navigational information and weather forecasts; provide virtual marketplace to negotiate best prices for fresh and processed fish; chart safe courses to and from fishing zones; access digital financial services including affordable loans; and provide fish processing best practices and hygiene education. Users interact with the mobile app via a visual interface, voice commands, or artificial intelligence-powered chatbot. Senegal’s Food Security Commission shares market prices collected by WISE with seven West African countries and uses it for assessing food security situation and develop a national preparedness action plan for minimizing food shortages. The WISE platform is deployed in Senegal’s three major fish landing and processing sites (Mbour, Joal, and Dakar). The fish catch in Mbour alone is around 165,000 tons representing 41% of the total production of Senegalese artisanal fisheries. Fish processors achieved a ten-fold increase in their business, from 100kg to 1,000kg of fish/person/month; and fishermen increased their income by as much as $550/year. The national scale-up plan of the platform is being prepared through the leadership of Senegal’s Ministry of Telecommunication and Digital Economy.

https://www.fhi360.org/projects/wireless-solutions-fisheries-senegal-wise

• Senegal

• Women
• The poor
• Remote and rural communities
• Small-scale fishermen and female fish processors

The project is replicable in terms of technological replicability as well as organizational processes replicable.

Technological replicability: The WISE platform is developed using free and open-source platforms and frameworks and works well even in areas where the is limited connectivity such as 2G. The project has developed detailed technical documentation to help developers localize the platform for different countries or contexts.

Organizational processes replicability: The processes, human resource requirements, management processes tested and deployed by the project can be used by others in low- and middle-income countries. We understand that there can be unique social, infrastructural, cultural and other factors that might make project activities non-repeatable, but to a large extent, the organizational process developed, tested and deployed by the project can be adapted for different settings.

The project is following two approaches for ensuring the sustainability of the project: the policy approach and the market-based approach.

The first and most important approach is the “policy approach” of sustaining the efforts and derived benefits of the project where the aim is for the government to support and scale up the WISE platform. Recognizing that governments are the main service providers and with the capacity to consistently fund programs that provide a public good, the project closely worked with the Ministry of Digital Economy and Telecommunications and the Senegal Food Security Commission. The Food Security Commission has already streamlined the use of WISE in its business process for collecting, analyzing and disseminating fish market prices and has started allocating budget to support such activities. The Ministry of Digital Economy and Telecommunication has identified the WISE platform for supporting the fishery value chain in the country.

The second approach employed by the project is a “market-based approach” to support the scale-up and sustainability of the services rendered by the project. To implement this approach, the project is working with Free/Tigo (a mobile network operator) to include the information services provided by the WISE platform as part of their offerings to fishermen and fish processors. Free/Tigo is currently developing a package for fishermen and fish processors that includes affordable smartphones (reduced price), free connectivity for accessing WISE and its information services, and mobile money with affordable transaction costs. The package is being developed based on multiple discussions with fishermen and fish processors to make sure that the package is affordable and meets their needs.

The project promoted WSIS values in the following ways. People-centered approach: The initiative applied a people-centric approach to explore and understand individual and institutional user needs, develop a user-need-responsive digital solution, test prototype with real-time intervention, deploy and continuously improve the solution based on user needs and technology options. Inclusive information society: As in other low- and middle-income countries where women are 10% less likely than men to own a mobile phone than men (GSMA, 2019), mobile phone ownership of women and their access to information is significantly lower than men. To support the strengthening of an inclusive information society, the project provided smartphones and Internet access to female fish processing cooperatives. It also provided smartphones to fishermen who can’t afford to buy smartphones so that they will have access to the information resources provided by the WISE platform. In addition, the initiative provided ongoing training to the women fish processors and low-income fish processors to enhance their digital literacy.