Use of information and communication technology (ICT) to warn and rescue fishermen at sea - a feasibility study

Abstract

More than 30 years ago, Robert Fano, hailing the “marriage” of computers and communications, predicted that it would be very unlikely to solve problems of the modern society without significant help from them (Fano, 1972). Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has the potential of solving a vast majority of development problems, and promises to transform the world like never before. Incidentally, as Fano predicted, for more than 30 years the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has used ICT for development (ICT4D). 95% of more than 80 USAID Missions comprise more than one ICT4D activities, with 351 such activities in all, out of which 70% activities use ICT as a development tool (“USAID : Information and Communication Technology for Development”, n.d.). The goal of the United Nations Information and Communication Technologies Task Force (http://www.unicttaskforce.org/) is to help harness the power of ICT for advancing the internationally agreed development goals. In his book Development as Freedom (Sen, 1999), economist Amartya Sen presents the idea of freedom as both the means and ends of development. Sen argues that GDP and income are misleading measures for development. Access to opportunities and religious and economic freedom are the correct measures to gauge development of the society. He also introduces the concept of relative freedom, comparing African Americans and Chinese and Indian demographic statistics, and stating that freedom as a measure of development is not absolute, but means different things in different societies. Some ways in which ICT promises to deliver this freedom to the masses is by eliminating information asymmetry, reducing information access costs, and making information available at the click of a button (be it a computer mouse or a mobile phone keypad). In this work, we explore how ICT promises to improve the lives of fisher community in India. As per Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) statistics, there were 13.59 million fisherfolk in India involved full-time in fishing and ancillary activities like net weaving, fish vending and processing in 2003, with an additional 1.07 million involved part-time (“Fishery Country Profile – The Republic of India”, 2006). Although the fish processing industry is well developed with 1.07% contribution to India’s GDP in 2003-04 (ibid), the fishermen are mostly poor; as many as 90% of them were living below poverty line in 2001 (“The Voice of the Turtle,” n.d.). In addition to being economically poor, the fisher community is mostly uneducated (except in the state of Kerala), and socially weak. The interaction of the authors with fishermen and fishery NGOs was limited to the Southern Indian state of Kerala, and most of the recommendations and conclusions made this report were made keeping fishermen habits and practices in Kerala in mind.