Tuna or Tasi? Fishing for Policy Coherence in Zanzibar’s Small-Scale Fisheries Sector

Zanzibar in 1964 merged with Tanganyika to become the United Republic of Tanzania (URT). Zanzibar enjoys autonomy in the governance of marine resources having adverse effects on the implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication (SSF Guidelines) as Zanzibar is not a member of the FAO as a unit on its own, but only as a part of the URT. While the Guidelines were still unknown to Zanzibar a new fisheries policy was formulated complicating their implementation, as the Guidelines clashes with the new fisheries policy. We examine this clash using the concept policy coherence defined as the coherence between (a) development and other policies, and (b) development policies of different donors. We downscale it to apply to policies within one sector, small-scale fisheries, by comparing the fisheries policy which is grounded in liberal ideas like commercialization and capitalization, with the SSF Guidelines which ideationally are based in human rights and a view of fishing as also culture and not just any economic activity subject to economic laws. We argue that conflicts between the two may result in failure to implement the SSF Guidelines as they do not come with World Bank and other external funding as the new fishery policy does. Choosing between conflicting policy elements the choice will likely be the fishery policy if the implementation of SSF Guidelines comes with a cost.