The target audience covers policy makers and private sector in Eastern Africa Countries. The goal is to manage a water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) which has choked major water bodies in the basin in a way that adds value and give returns to investments in the management of the weed. Investments on research on livestock feed and organic manure formulation will, need to be guaranteed by MDGs, regional governments will need to finance related infrastructure while the private sector will need to invest in marketing and innovative production processes.

1. Financing Water Hyacinth Management in Lake Victoria Basin
Stephen Omondi Okoth,
Agribusiness & Financial Management Consultant
Elison Decision Support Services, Kenya
The target audience covers policy makers and private sector in Eastern Africa Countries. The
goal is to manage a water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) which has choked major water
bodies in the basin in a way that adds value and give returns to investments in the
management of the weed. Investments on researchon livestock feed and organic manure
formulation will, need to be guaranteed by MDGs, regional governments will need to finance
related infrastructure while the private sector will invest in marketing and production
processes..
Private Sector Finance
for settingup value
addingprocesses and
marketing
PublicSector
Finance for
related
infrastructure
MDB
guarantees on
investment
funds

2. Financing Water Hyacinth Management in Lake Victoria Basin
Stephen Omondi Okoth,
Agribusiness & Financial Management Consultant
Elison Decision Support Services, Kenya
The Scene
The Lake Victoria Basin is part of the larger Nile Basin and made up of the East African
countries of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda Tanzania and Uganda.

3. Financing Water Hyacinth Management in Lake Victoria Basin
Stephen Omondi Okoth,
Agribusiness & Financial Management Consultant
Elison Decision Support Services, Kenya
The East African countries manage the Lake Victoria Basin Commission that has a mission of
sustainable development and poverty eradication in the basin. The East Africa Community has
a market size of over 150 million people. It has a land area of 1.82 million square kilometers
and a combined Gross Domestic Product of US$ 146 billion (EAC Statistics for 2016).

4. Financing Water Hyacinth Management in Lake Victoria Basin
Stephen Omondi Okoth,
Agribusiness & Financial Management Consultant
Elison Decision Support Services, Kenya
Agriculture, livestock and fisheries is the backbone of livelihoods for the majority of people
living in the Lake Victoria Basin in Eastern Africa with over 80% of the population living in
rural areas and directly depending on agriculture. The agricultural sector is dominated by
smallholder mixed farming of livestock, food crops, cash crops, fishing and aquaculture.
Cash crops include: tea, cotton, coffee, pyrethrum, sugar cane, sisal, horticultural crops, oil-
crops, cloves, tobacco, coconut and cashew nuts.
The livestock sub-sector consists of cattle, sheep, goats, and camels, mainly for meat and milk
production; pigs and poultry for white meat and eggs respectively; hides and skins for export
and industrial processing.
Fisheries products include both fresh water fish from rivers, dams and lakes and marine fish
from the Indian Ocean. Forestry products include fruits, honey, herbal medicine, timber and
wood for fuel
Challenge
The water hyacinth(Eichhornia crassipes)has choked large parts of Lake Victoria and
surrounding rivers. This is undermining fisheries and water transport thereby freshwater fish
production. Consequently, there is a compelling reason to find way s of investing in sustainable
management of the weed in a way that will give returns to the investment.
Secondly much of the fertilizers used in the basin are chemical hence not friendly to the
environment. They are also unaffordable to the largely small scale farmers. There is therefore
a need to explore for alternative ways of availing affordable organic fertilizer.
In addition, livestock and fish feeds currently used are wheat and maize based and expensive.
There is hence a need to avail affordable feeds for fish and livestock.
The solution
There are indications that water hyacinth is not toxic as animal feed and not toxic to soils as
manure because it had once been controlled by using hippos in the US.
The proposed solution is to physically harvest it and use shred it for organic manure, fish and
livestock feed manufacture by the private sector. Due to the cheap raw material, the final
products is expected not be out of reach of small scale farmers.

5. Financing Water Hyacinth Management in Lake Victoria Basin
Stephen Omondi Okoth,
Agribusiness & Financial Management Consultant
Elison Decision Support Services, Kenya
The partner governments will need to finance infrastructurefor example electricity
distribution around the lake to power manufacturing and road networks for distribution.
The MDBs especially can finance the studies on the plant and the best way to formulate feeds
and fertilizers from it.