By George K. Werner (former education minister)
This week, Liberia hosted the National Fisheries Investment Conference – Kpongama 2026, bringing together government officials, development partners, investors, and sector experts to discuss the future of the fisheries sector and the promise of what is now widely called the blue economy.
I was not there in person, but I followed the commentary, speeches, and pictures closely on social media. As I did, my mind drifted away from the conference hall and returned instead to the coastline of my childhood — the shores of Grand Kru and Maryland, where I grew up. For those of us raised along Liberia’s Atlantic coast, fish is never just fish.
Fish is livelihood.
Fish is family.
Fish is transport money.
Fish is school fees.
Fish is survival.
But it is also something more.
Along the coast, we often describe God as the Provider of Fish.
That expression is deeply cultural and deeply spiritual. It reflects a worldview in which the sea is not simply a resource, but a source of providence and blessing. When the canoes return with a rich catch, many homes begin with gratitude. The Atlantic feeds the body, but faith steadies the spirit. In many coastal communities, the sea, the creeks, and the rivers are woven into memory, ritual, and identity.
Yet as I followed the conversations around investment, infrastructure, and sustainability this week, I kept returning to a more grounded truth: the real managers of Liberia’s fishery economy are often not the men who go out to sea.
They are the women who wait on the shore.
A friend of mine, Friday, in Buchanan, owns several fishing boats and canoes together with his wife. But spend even a short time at the landing site and it becomes immediately clear where the operational authority lies.
It is the wife who manages the canoes.
It is the wife who organizes the fishermen.
It is the wife who oversees the fish.
It is the wife who handles the sales.
And when the money comes in, she ties it securely at the tip of her lappa.
That knot at the end of the lappa is more than a cultural image.
It is treasury.
It is working capital.
It is accounting.
It is liquidity management.
In Marshall, Margibi County, Liberia, the story is much the same. Women own canoes and hire young men — Liberians and Ghanaians alike — to use them. They wait on the shore for the boats to return, and when the fish comes in, they immediately take charge of the next stage: sorting, pricing, transport, smoking, and distribution.
This is where the economics becomes unmistakable.
Women sell fish to women.
The woman who owns or manages the canoe sells to another woman who smokes or dries the fish. That woman sells to another who transports it by taxi, keke, or market vehicle into town. From there, it moves into the hands of market women, and eventually to women who run cook shops, restaurants, hotels, and roadside kitchens.
This is a chain of profit points.
From the sea to the shore.
From the shore to the smoking shed.
From the smoking shed to the taxi.
From the taxi to the market.
From the market to the restaurant.
At nearly every transfer point, another woman earns a margin.
This is not incidental trade.
This is a women-led value chain.
And the national data now confirms what coastal communities have always known.
According to the World Bank’s Liberia Sustainable Management of Fisheries Project, the fisheries sector contributes 3.2% of national GDP and supports the livelihoods of about 33,000 Liberians directly, with much broader indirect effects on households and food systems.
Other sector studies estimate that fisheries account for nearly 10% of agricultural GDP, while providing a critical source of nutrition and income, especially in coastal counties.
What is even more significant is that artisanal and semi-artisanal fisheries make up roughly 86% of Liberia’s fisheries sector.
That statistic matters.
Because artisanal fisheries are precisely where women dominate the post-harvest economy.
They are processors.
They are traders.
They are financiers.
They are asset owners.
They are distributors.
They are the ones who transform a catch into multiple streams of household income.
One basket of fish may generate profit for five women before it reaches the final plate.
The canoe owner earns.
The processor earns.
The transporter earns.
The market woman earns.
The hotel kitchen earns.
In practical terms, Liberia’s coastal fishery economy is a distributed women-led enterprise system.
This is why the conversation on fisheries must move beyond boats and nets.
The World Bank itself has recognized the importance of value addition, reduction of post-harvest losses, landing infrastructure, cold storage, and livelihoods enhancement.
But perhaps the more profound truth is that long before conference halls began speaking of the blue economy, Liberian women had already built it.
They have done the math from the shoreline.
They have managed the risk.
They have converted providence into profit.
They have transformed blessing into enterprise.
So when we say God is the Provider of Fish, perhaps we must also say that the women of Liberia’s coast are the stewards of that blessing.
They are the earthly managers of providence.
That is not merely commerce.
That is stewardship.
That is culture.
That is faith meeting economics.
That is nation-building from the shore.
