A recent workshop in Mombasa to develop Kenya’s National Fleet Development Plan for 2027–2031, paired with the National Tuna Fisheries Management and Development Strategy, marks more than another policy meeting. It is a deliberate attempt to convert long-standing potential into owned capability in one of the country’s most under-exploited economic domains—and to reclaim ground Kenya once held.
Kenya’s Exclusive Economic Zone in the Western Indian Ocean sits in a productive tuna belt that accounts for a meaningful share of global catches. Yet the country has historically captured only a fraction of the value. Artisanal vessels dominate nearshore waters, rarely ranging beyond 20 nautical miles. There has been no substantial domestic commercial tuna fleet capable of operating further offshore in recent decades. Foreign distant-water fleets have taken the bulk of the resource, while Kenya has largely remained a coastal player with limited landings, processing and export earnings from its own waters.
This was not always the case. In the early 1970s to 1980s, the Kenyan fisheries industry owned and operated three deep-sea industrial fishing vessels—FV Ujuzi, FV Ufunguo and FV Uchumi. These vessels represented an early national effort to build industrial capacity and exploit offshore resources directly. Their eventual disappearance from the fleet left a capability gap that has persisted for decades, underscoring how earlier gains in domestic industrial fishing were not sustained.
The numbers illustrate the gap. National fish production has hovered around 163,000–168,000 metric tonnes in recent years, contributing roughly 0.7 per cent to GDP and supporting livelihoods for an estimated 1.2–4 million people across the value chain. The government now targets more than 450,000 metric tonnes by 2030, with sector earnings rising from roughly KSh 30–40 billion toward KSh 350 billion under the National Blue Economy Strategy 2025–2030. Tuna is central to closing that gap. Earlier estimates suggested substantial sustainable harvest potential in Kenya’s waters—on the order of tens of thousands of tonnes—that could generate billions of shillings if domestic capacity existed.
The previous National Tuna Fisheries Development and Management Strategy (2013–2018) correctly diagnosed the problem: unsustainable utilisation in some areas, low national economic benefit, weak governance and cross-cutting social issues. Its ambition was to move from artisanal to modern commercial coastal and oceanic fisheries. Progress was limited. Domestic fleet development lagged, infrastructure remained inadequate and foreign vessels continued to dominate offshore catches. A subsequent Fleet Development Plan covering 2016–2025 faced similar implementation shortfalls, as reflected in reporting to the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission. The new workshop and the refreshed Tuna Strategy therefore represent a necessary reset—one that can learn from both the early industrial vessels of the 1970s–80s and the more recent shortfalls.
Several structural changes make this attempt more promising. The broader Blue Economy Strategy provides an overarching frame that links fisheries to ports, cold-chain infrastructure, value addition, maritime skills and monitoring systems. Investments already underway—rehabilitated processing capacity at Liwatoni, new or upgraded landing sites along the coast and Lake Victoria, mariculture centres and strengthened Monitoring, Control and Surveillance—create the physical and institutional scaffolding a domestic fleet needs. Joint ventures, vessel acquisition or leasing incentives, and flagging policies can accelerate the shift from pure artisanal effort to a mixed fleet that includes semi-industrial and industrial vessels capable of operating in the EEZ, rebuilding what Kenya once possessed with Ujuzi, Ufunguo and Uchumi.
Success, however, is not automatic. Three risks stand out.
First, sustainability. Tuna stocks in the Indian Ocean face pressure; yellowfin in particular has required careful management under IOTC rules. Expanding Kenya’s fleet without rigorous science-based quotas, vessel monitoring, observer coverage and ecosystem safeguards risks repeating the over-exploitation patterns seen elsewhere. The new Tuna Strategy must prioritise stock status, bycatch reduction and climate resilience rather than treating increased catch as an unqualified good.
Second, equity and inclusion. Artisanal fishers and coastal communities have long operated at the margins of the high-value tuna trade, often selling to middlemen at low prices. A modern fleet must create pathways for these communities—through cooperatives, joint ventures, skills training, preferential access arrangements and local content requirements—rather than displacing them. Gender dimensions and youth employment need explicit attention if the “bottom-up” rhetoric of national economic plans is to mean anything on the coast.
Third, execution capacity. Kenya has produced competent strategies before and once operated industrial vessels. Delivery has been the constraint: financing, coordination across ministries and counties, regulatory consistency, maintenance of assets and private-sector confidence. The Fleet Development Plan will need clear targets for vessel numbers and types by year, realistic financing models (public investment, development partners, commercial banks and private equity), shipyard and repair capacity, crew training pipelines, and transparent access arrangements for any remaining foreign vessels. Without these, the documents risk joining earlier plans on the shelf, and the capability once embodied by Ujuzi, Ufunguo and Uchumi will remain a historical footnote rather than a foundation for renewal.
The geopolitical and commercial context also favours action. Regional maritime cooperation is deepening. Global demand for responsibly sourced tuna remains strong, and markets increasingly reward traceability and sustainability certifications. A credible Kenyan fleet and management system would strengthen the country’s hand in IOTC negotiations and in bilateral access discussions. Domestically, higher fish availability supports food security and nutrition goals while generating foreign exchange and skilled jobs in fishing, processing, logistics and related services.
The Mombasa workshop is therefore correctly timed. It sits at the intersection of an updated Tuna Strategy, a new multi-year Fleet Development Plan and the broader Blue Economy Strategy. The opportunity is real: to turn a resource that has largely flowed past Kenya into one that is harvested, processed and marketed by Kenyans under rules that protect the stocks for the long term—and to rebuild industrial fishing capacity that the country briefly possessed half a century ago. Realising it will require disciplined implementation, honest stock assessment, genuine inclusion of coastal communities and sustained political attention beyond the workshop stage.
Kenya has spent years acknowledging the potential of its blue economy. The test now is whether the next five-year fleet and tuna plans become the instruments that finally convert that potential into measurable national benefit, learning from both past ambition and past attrition.