Social protection and aquatic food systems

Tying social protection to the blue economy—using marine resources for rural economic growth and improved livelihoods while preserving the health of the ocean ecosystem - is potentially a powerful and sustainable means of improving small-scale fisheries. This paper examines critical links between social protection and the blue economy, emphasizing small-scale fisheries as part of a broader transformative social protection agenda. In the face of climate change and other global shocks, shock-responsive social protection and adaptive social protection may be useful frameworks to envisage social protection in the fisheries sector. We discuss some of the challenges and opportunities of enhancing social protection for fisheries-dependent households and how social protection and fisheries management initiatives can be complementary. Particularly, we underscore the importance of enhancing economic inclusion and sustainable fisheries management through the possible implementation and rollout of various social protection policies and programmes that address marine and aquatic food systems. We provide support on the importance of various social protection instruments-both formal and informal for supporting marine and aquatic food systems both proactively and reactively for enhanced livelihoods. To end, we highlight and discuss issues of marginalisation and the significant youth and gender gaps which are commonplace in the fisheries sector, identifying some areas for policy entry and action.

Citation

Martin Paul Tabe-Ojong, Marilou Vincent, Marvin Kedinga, Anouk Ride, Marleen Schutter, Dirk Steenbergen, Hampus Eriksson. (30/6/2025). Social protection and aquatic food systems. Environmental Science & Policy, 168.