Analysis of the Impact of Fishery Cooperatives on Fishing Activity of Rural Households Around Lake Ziway and Lagano in Ethiopia

: This research work was conducted to investigate the impact of fishery cooperatives on fishing activity of rural households around Lake Ziway and Lagano in Ethiopia. The studied districts were selected using purposive sampling, as they are adjacent to the two lakes. Simple random sampling was employed to select 179 fishing household with whom the survey questionnaire was administered. The respondnets were further classified into fishery cooperative member and non-member households in the proportion of 48% and 52%, respectively. The range of data collected on cooperative performance and household socioeconomic characteristics were comprised of fishery cooperatives performance, fishing materials, fish output, fish income, gender, age, fishing experience, level of education, household size, credit use, fishing expense, nature of involvement, etc. Data analysis were made using descriptive statistics, budgetary analysis and the propensity score matching. Descriptive statistics cover distribution of fishery cooperatives, institutions working with the cooperatives and fishing households, socioeconomic characteristics of the respondents examined using frequency distribution tables. The study noted, weak performance of fishery cooperatives to serve its purpose to the members. The result of budgetary analysis shows positive fish gross margin income (GMI) of ETB 3,023.40 and net fish income (NI) of ETB 1899.00 for the studied year for a given fisherman, partly because of the legal right given to cooperative members to use the lakes to harvest fish. To examine the impact of fishery cooperatives on fish income of a household, the propensity score matching method was employed. We used the propensity score estimation to balance the observed distribution of covariate across the member and nonmember household. Balancing test was made after matching that ascertained absence of significant differences in covariate between members and non-members in the matched sample. Thus, the matched comparison groups were considered to be a plausible counterfactual. Accordingly, the result of impact analysis verified the significancy of fishery cooperatives on fish income of average household using the matched samples. In this regards, a household who operate under the fishery cooperatives guidance were able to earn extra income from fish catch as compared to the non-member counterpart indicating ATT of ETB4,624.70 and ETB4,585.30, taking the NNM and KBM algorithms, respectively. The results were statistically significant at 5% level. The stability of the findings was tested using Wilcoxon Signed Rank P-value and Hodges-Lehmann (HL) point estimate that confirmed absence of hidden bias due to unobserved cofounder, thus supporting the positive treatment effect of fishery cooperatives. Despite the income gain to the fishing households, there was increased pressure over the fish resources. Involvement of 'illegal fishermen' were rampant. Thus, memeber households were having an attitude to join back the non-members. Hence to convince them to work under the fishery cooperatives, massive awareness raising on the practical constribution of cooperatives and strict monitoring of the fishing efforts to administer illegal fishers, boundary setting for fish catch, scheduling the fishing dates and season, legal enforcement mechanisms, creation of an enabling ground to local institutions involvement and others were among the measures cited to promote optimal fishing pactice in the area. In this regards; detail investigation of the respective fishery cooperatives situation, consistent followup on the activities of various development partners working in the area and detail evaluation of the livelihood of the fishing community were suggested.