ABALOBI ICT4Fisheries

Small-scale fisheries lack access to infrastructure and technologies that support their livelihoods. Considered data-poor, they are marginalised in markets and management, remaining price takers whose critical knowledge is severely undervalued. Women in particular are the most marginalised in small-scale fisheries.

Our holistic approach combines tech and touch. On the tech side, we co-design ICTs with fishers. The app suite facilitate catch logging, product traceability, safety at sea, improved value chains and market access through our digital seafood MARKETPLACE platform. Further, we foster equality and access to through our dedicated capacity building and training programmes. We work with fishers to create and support vibrant cooperatives, with a specific emphasis on women’s cooperatives and value added services.

As we scale our programme and platforms, we shorten value chains, reducing fisheries' footprints, enhance food security and fishers' livelihoods, and achieve tangible social justice. 

Globally, small-scale fisheries contribute half of all seafood catches and in African approximately 200 million people rely on them for access to affordable protein. Despite this, small-scale fishing communities typically show high levels of poverty and vulnerability, and low financial literacy. In developing countries, many do not log catches. Despite their wealth of local ecological knowledge, a lack of infrastructure, data, and education means they are regarded as data-limited and are rarely consulted in fisheries management processes. Women in small-scale fisheries in particular, face distinct marginalisation in that much of their labour remains invisible and underpaid.


In the marketplace, limited financial literacy and access to infrastructure and adequate cold chains keeps fishers as price takers. Further, in the face of rapidly rising global consumer demand for traceable, sustainable products, most small-scale fishers have limited or no access to technologies that facilitate the traceability of their products. These fishers often have little or no access to tracking technologies that support their safety at sea. Given their data-limited status and lack of access to supporting digital traceability and tracking technologies, the fishers’ options for participating in the fourth industrial revolution or competing on an even footing with commercial fisheries are severely restricted. 

Our holistic approach combines tech and touch. On the tech side, we maintain a suite of ICTs co-designed with small-scale fishers. The co-design process ensures that each platform is fit for purpose and readily adopted. The mobile app suite facilitates catch logging, product traceability, safety at sea, improved value chains and market access through a digital seafood MARKETPLACE platform. Each app is highly configurable to local market requirements and the entire app suite is integrated and managed from a centralised admin panel. 

On the touch side, we foster equality and access to through our dedicated capacity building and training programmes. Training materials are co-designed with fishers and cover a range of topics including (among others) financial literacy, ICT competency, cooperative development and cold chains. We work with fishers to create and support vibrant cooperatives, with a specific emphasis on women’s cooperatives and value added services.

We work with small-scale fishing communities in Africa. These communities are characterised by a legacy of financial and political marginalisation. As rural, isolated communities, they have limited access to infrastructure and markets, yet rely on low-impact fishing techniques that address many of the demands of urban markets for high quality, sustainable seafood. Through a carefully designed co-design process, we engage with fishers and the broader community to understand their most pressing challenges, and work closely with them from the outset to plan and develop ICT platforms that support their enterprises and enable them to engage in management and market spheres on an equalised footing. We place emphasis on upskilling and empowering women in fisheries as their labour is often underremunerated. Additionally, we work with these groups to formalise their activities in quality control, value added products and the formation of cooperatives.  

Our MARKETPLACE platform directly connects small-scale fishers with consumers, eliminating middle-persons from the value chain. Fishers undergo comprehensive training in a range of cold chain techniques and trained quality control personnel from the community monitor each catch from landing site to the final delivery. Community drivers deliver the fish on ice directly to our central batching facility on the day of landing, where it is  batched and sent out for local delivery. These steps dramatically reduce the conventional seafood supply chain and mean fish sold on the platform is always fresh and not frozen. 

In the seafood sector, several companies are taking steps to digitise elements of the supply chain or provide enhanced tracking or traceability. Organisations such as SuccorFish, TunaSolutions or VeriCatch offer either a traceability platform or a marketplace. 

What sets ABALOBI apart from its competitors is twofold. Firstly, our fisher-driven co-design process. This ensures that all products are fit for purpose, informed by the local context, address the problem meaningfully and are thus readily adopted. 

Secondly, our holistic approach sees our various platforms and services integrated at a high level. We cover the entire value chain, providing quality control oversight, the MARKETPLACE platform, batching facilities, technical support, payment solutions and logistical support.

Rather than offering these solutions as discrete options as per competitors, we understand fisheries as complex, interlinked systems and as such, integrate across each platform and program. For example, rather than offering a standalone marketplace like competitors, we understand that a marketplace cannot function in isolation and must of necessity integrate traceability, catch logging, fisher training, and monitoring components. For this reason, the ABALOBI MARKETPLACE platform integrates with our catch logging and monitoring apps, as well as our traceability system. Further, we provide fishers with training in financial management, cold chain, quality control, and ICTs before they can engage in the MARKETPLACE platform. In this way, we ensure that fishers are upskilled and empowered to participate as digital citizens and our integrated systems cover the full fishery value chain from Hook to Cook.

Our offering is a combination of hardware and software, and both preexisting and novel technologies. ABALOBI's technology platforms cover the full scope of the small-scale fisheries from ‘hook to cook’. At the heart of our offering is a mobile app suite co-designed from the ground up with fishers and developed in-house. This includes a digital catch and expense logging platform (ABALOBI FISHER) and our digital MARKETPLACE platform enabling fishers to sell fully traceable, storied catch of the day fresh and direct to restaurants and consumers. This is integrated with our logistics platform, built on a customised version of an existing framework that integrates with our traceability and tracking systems. 

We use vessel-mounted satellite tracking devices, specifically designed for small craft, to provide traceability, tracking, and safety at sea. Track logs are integrated with the FISHER and MARKETPLACE platforms. The MARKETPLACE is underpinned by a dedicated traceability platform which incorporates KDEs along the entire value chain. At the point of consumption, consumers are able to scan a unique QR code to view comprehensive catch and transport details for the fish in front of them. 

Our integrated tracking, traceability and MARKETPLACE system have been tried and tested in South Africa's West Coast Rock Lobster (WCRL) fishery, one of the most threatened and challenging fisheries on the African continent. As a high value species that is severely depleted, the WCRL fishery is an ideal testing ground in which to prove the robustness of ABALOBI's systems. 

The following recently released documentary details the use case for our technologies: http://codingforcrayfish.com/#watch

Our overall Theory of Change is based on the hypothesis that sustainable development can only take place in small-scale fisheries through the adoption of ‘change pathways’ that integrate ecological, social and economic concerns. We enable small-scale fishers to engage in the market from a position of power, increase the value of their seafood and livelihoods, catalyse their engagement in adaptive fisheries management, and promote thriving, sustainable, equitable fishing communities. Further, we believe that communities can only be sustainable when there is gender equity, respect for human rights, and dignity for all. By recording their own catches, being able to visualise and analyse their data collectively, coupled with the co-design of and participation in a fully traceable, storied seafood marketplace and gender equitable practices, small-scale fishers will be able to achieve these goals.

The below figures describe numbers of fishers. They do not account for ancillary fish workers or beneficiaries.

Number of fishers currently served: 615+

Number of fishers served in 1 year: 4000+

Number of fishers served in 5 years: 20 000+

We aim to change the lives of small-scale fishers around the world, empowering them with access to training and technology that supports their livelihoods, and engages them as active participants in the 4th industrial revolution. To achieve these ends, our intention from 2020 forward is to scale our model internationally by offering in-country partners access to our platforms and software as a service. Partnerships have been key to our success thus far and are critical to our future scaling aspirations, particularly beyond the African continent, where local knowledge will be key to appropriately adapting our systems to local needs. 

Over the course of the next year, our focus is on international expansion, with partnerships now established in Europe, the Central Pacific region, and Central and South America. 

Within five years, our intention is to have expanded our model into Asia and North America drawing on partnership networks. Our role as a key player in the international ICT4Fisheries network is key to growing these partnerships. 

As we grow and scale, we have identified a need for more in-house development expertise. To this end, we are seeking funding to build out or development team and hire senior developers and ICT experts. In South Africa, whilst this expertise is available locally, it is somewhat limited and as such, we may need to look outside of our borders. 

We have embarked on a seed funding round to attract investment with a specific aim of building the development expertise and capacity of the organisation.  

Full time staff: 12

Part time staff: 2

Contractors: 10

Our team comprises passionate people from a range of backgrounds. The co-founders have a combined experience of 50 years in small-scale fisheries. Our board is made up of international experts in the small-scale fisheries field, and our staff consists of experts in the fields of logistics, systems development and architecture, operations, ICTs, and community development.  

Board expertise: 

Johan Bosini - Chairman - designed, built and launched the first scale mobile-only unsecured loan product in Africa using digital rails of mobile money partners, lending to millions of entrepreneurs and consumers in rural locations using only cell phone behavioral data.

Dr Kevern Cochrane - Global fisheries - Former Director of Resources Use and Conservation Division, Fisheries and Aquaculture Department, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

Nicole Franz - Global small-scale fisheries - Fishery Planning analyst and small-scale fisheries expert at FAO

Andrew Cawood - Technical development - Specialist in systems analysis and development, software development, mobile apps

Abongile Ngqongwa - Fisheries management - Deputy Director of Small-Scale Fisheries Management at the South African national Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries
Dr Yemi Oloruntuyi - Developing world fisheries - Small-scale fisheries, developing world fisheries, ecology, fisheries management, fisheries certification and ecolabelling, project management 

Dr Jackie Sunde - Gender equity - Academic researcher and member of the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF)

Nicolaas Waldeck - Community engagement specialist and fisher with 25+ years experience working collaboratively in small-scale fishing communities

We currently have working MOUs with several South African in international organisations including Blue Ventures, WWF South Africa, and Conservation International. 

We partner with each organisation to deploy our platforms and programmes in various sites in South Africa, the Seychelles and Comoros. In 2020, we are working with Blue Ventures to launch several projects in Madagascar. 

We operate under a combined B2B and B2C model. 

In our B2B operations, we license our app suite or individual apps to third partiy organisations as a platform as a service, and offer customisation to meet local market requirements.

In our B2C operations, we operate the MARKETPLACE platform, connecting fishers to consumers (restaurants and home consumers). In this model, ABALOBI makes money from logistics fees derived from batching and delivering fish on behalf of fishers. These are covered by a logistics fee charged to consumers.  

Recruiting developers to our team is of high priority as we look to scale our offering. As important to our model is the development of partnerships spanning different countries and continents. It is this opportunity - to connect with a network of like-minded individuals and organisations - that we are most excited about and which we feel participation in the Solve program will help us achieve. 

As we look to scale our offering from 2020 onwards, we face two challenges: finding relevant talent and expertise to assist us in building out our development team; and sourcing new channels, customers and organisations through which we can distribute our platforms and software. 

We are particularly excited to interact with organisations in the 'coastal communities' space, but have no preference as to specific organisations or individuals. As we are looking to expand our network, we are open to any and all contacts and potential partners who want to start a conversation about the ocean frontiers and who share our passion for coastal community development.