Good point - I think as well as working to improve the quality of information, there is a simultaneous effort to work more with fishery-independent data, and to shift towards forms of management where expensive fish-stock dynamics information is not so critical to management decision making. These include participatory management, that rely on knowledge generated by communities themselves. There is an on-going WorldFish-FAO collaboration around development of a new framework for assessing and managing small-scale fisheries, where standard fishery data are seldom available to decision-makers, and where factors outside the fishery (e.g. someone builds a dam upstream, or a tourist resort on your fishing beach) tend to have a large influence on the operation of the fishery. These diagnostic tools aim to gather information of the social, environmental, econmic and political context and inform management decision-making with scenario analyses, rather than fish stock assessments. There are many potential uses for ICTs in this milieu - particularly in knowledge-sharing between adjacent community-manged fisheries that are trying to harmonise their approaches to management or resolve conflicts and disputes. This work should be publically available in two to three months time. Keep checking the FAO and WorldFish websites for updates. Eddie

Peter Burgess raises an important challenge to those of us working in fisheries research - to answer the question: What information do people in fishing communities really need? To some extent, we can answer this by looking at what information people in fishing communities are willing to buy (i.e. not what they are given - whether its their priority or not - by development agencies). The examples Pete Cranston has assembled in the case-study database indicate, overwhelmingly, that they are willing to pay for information on markets. The case of mobile phones and fish markets in Kerala is a good recent example: http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9149142 However, there is also evidence of willingness to pay to reduce risks - for example by investing in technology that allows timely receipt of storm warnings and good short-term weather forecasts. But Peter Burgess is right - we should ask his question more often - it is a better, and more focused one than what gets asked in the crudest form of 'participatory research' : what are your needs? This usually results in a wish-list that the person asking (even if he is Bill Gates) can't possibly afford to provide for everyone: it begins with roads, schools, clinics and credit. Information needs are potentially cheaper and more effective to meet in the short term and involving people in knowledge generation and transmission may have significant positive impacts on their ability to mobilise support to meet their other needs and aspirations. Eddie

Thanks Peter - I'll pass this on to the Globefish people for comment Eddie

Hello - I'm Eddie Allison, Director of Policy, Economics and Social Science at the WorldFish Center. One of the aims of our group is to help better connect fisheries sector issues to wider concerns in international development, such as the use of ICT. We in the fisheries sector don't yet have a systematic view of how these technologies are being used and what impacts they are having. The database of ICT case summaries presented here are an important first step. If you have futher good examples, please let us know. The policy brief available here was first produced by Pete Cranston and Tori Holmes for the FAO/DFID Sustainable Fisheries Livelihoods Programme at a time when I was working with the programme too. We are hoping this is a first step in helping us to identify how we can help promote technology development that benefits both fish and fisherfolk. I'd like to thank Pete and Tori for the knowledge and enthusiasm they have contributed to helping us gain an appreciation of the range of opportunties for improving livelihoods and strenghening fisheries governance that the use of ICTs offers. Eddie Allison, Director - Policy, Economics and Social Science WorldFish Center, Penang, Malaysia