Profile: adding value to fish: Lovin Kobusingye is not just a successful woman entrepreneur in Uganda but an influential voice in shaping pan-African fisheries policies

Abstract

Lovin Kobusingye is a well-known young woman fish entrepreneur working in Central Uganda’s Wakiso District. For over eight years, she, along with her two partners and over a thousand other fish farmers, has worked on fish processing and value addition. At the same time, she has persistently lobbied the government to support women-led entrepreneurship through an enabling policy framework designed to protect women in fisheries activities both in Uganda and, at a higher level, throughout Africa. Lovin Kobusingye has a string of achievements to her credit. She is the Director and Co-Founder of Kati Farms (U) Ltd, a fish agro-processing enterprise. She is also the President of the Eastern Africa Women in Fisheries and Aquaculture Association (WIFA) that includes representation from eleven countries: Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, southern Sudan, Sudan and Tanzania. She is President of the Uganda National Women’s Fish Organization (UNWFO) and Treasurer of the African Women Fish Processors and