Building fisheries institutions through collective action in Norway

Abstract

Institutions, and the collective action that created them and which they enable, can play an important role in poverty eradication. In Norway, the Raw Fish Act passed in 1938 in the aftermath of the international financial crisis that hit the fishing industry hard, and the fishers’ cooperative sales-organizations that it authorized testify to this. Most of all, they helped to empower fishers in their economic transactions throughout the value chain. Since the RFA’s enactment, it has undergone reform that has somewhat changed the mandate of the sales-organizations, but the basic principles and functions remain. Although the historical context and institutional designs of the Raw Fish Act and the cooperative sales-organizations that it mandated, are unique, together they addressed a problem that small-scale fishers are experiencing in other parts of the world - one of poverty, marginalization and exploitation. The Raw Fish Act and the system of mandated, cooperative sales-organizations radically altered this predicament and turned the table in fishers’ favor. The question, therefore, is what lessons do the Norwegian example offer that might be emulated elsewhere?