Abstract The Lake Victoria fishery contributes immensely to the socio-economic development of the riparian states. The East African Community has designated the lake basin as an ‘economic growth zone’, with the potential to develop into a major economic region. The fisheries are vital in creating employment opportunities, mostly rural-based, thereby helping to reduce rural-urban migration. Fish is also a rich source of animal protein for human consumption and provides raw material (fishmeal) for processing animal feeds. The fish industry contributes to GDP and has continued to be an important source of foreign exchange earned from fish exports. Besides, the fish industry contributes to the national and local government revenues through levying of various taxes, levies and license fees. The sector has also contributed directly and indirectly to the improvement of physical infrastructure and social facilities, such as roads, schools and hospitals, particularly in remote fishing communities. Based on current stock estimates, the lake has the potential to yield fish valued at over US$ 800 million annually on a sustainable basis. Further processing and marketing the fish in the local and export markets could provide opportunity to generate additional earnings. Currently, however, only about 500,000 tonnes of fish is landed annually, with an average landing value of approximately US$ 600 million. However, the distribution of these benefits at the regional, national and individual levels is often not equitable. High disparities in distribution of benefits is considered undesirable as it creates a sense of social injustice among the beneficiaries; can be an obstacle for self-sustaining growth; is a limitation in uplifting the resource users out of poverty; leads to low compliance to fisheries regulations and hinders attaining sustainable fisheries exploitation. The paper assesses the distribution of economic benefits from the fisheries, using selected indicators. It reveals disparities in the benefits at the regional as well as at the local levels, with more benefits accruing to the upper levels of the fish marketing chain. The disparities are attributed to unequal distribution in production assets such as capital, skills and credit facilities; free-market price determination mechanisms; inadequate access to market and other useful information; limited investment horizon and opportunities among fishers; inadequate policies to deal with disparities in distribution and insufficient data for distribution analysis to feed into the policy process. In order to streamline distribution, the paper proposes, among other things; establishing suitable savings and credit schemes, empowering BMUs to organise fishers for marketing, improving market information flow through electronic and print, operationalising the Fish Levy Trust Fund for infrastructural and social facility development, improving policies and improving data availability. INTRODUCTION The Lake Victoria fishery contributes immensely to the socio-economic development of the riparian states. The East African Community has designated the lake basin as an ‘economic growth zone’, with the potential to develop into a major economic region. The fishery is vital in creating employment opportunities, mostly rural-based, thereby helping to reduce rural-urban migration. Fish is also a rich source of animal protein for human consumption and provides raw material (fishmeal) for processing animal feeds. The fish industry contributes to GDP of the riparian states and has continued to be an important source of foreign exchange earnings through fish exports to the regional and international markets. Besides, the fish industry contributes to the national and local government revenues through the various taxes, levies and license fees. The sector has also contributed directly and indirectly to the improvement of physical infrastructure and social facilities, such as roads, schools and hospitals, particularly in remote fishing communities. Lake Victoria is estimated to produce 500,000 tonnes annually, valued at US$ 600 million, with export value of US$217 in 2001 (LVFO, 2005). Based on current stock estimates, the lake has the potential to yield fish valued at over US$ 800 million annually on a sustainable basis. Further processing and marketing of this fish in the local and export markets can generate an additional value of about US$ 57 million. Various goals have been considered to guide the utilization of Lake Victoria’s fisheries resources. These goals derive from the definition of the concept of sustainable development in relation to fisheries, as provided for in the Agenda 21 of the Rio Conference. The Millennium Development Goals (MDG) of the United Nations provide for reduction in the number of people in extreme poverty and suffering hunger by half by the year 2015, eliminating gender disparity, ensuring environmental stability and developing global partnership for development, among others. Relevant elements of the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries (CCRF) are also incorporated into national fisheries development and management plans (FAO 1995). At the regional level, the development strategies of the East African Community (EAC) identify Lake Victoria and its basin as an “economic growth zone” to be exploited in a co-ordinated manner to maximize economic and social benefits and at the same time provide environmental management and protection. LVFO’s mission statement spells out its goal for Lake Victoria as “restoring and maintaining the health of its ecosystem, and assuring sustainable development to the benefit of the present and future generations” (LVFO 1999). The draft Lake Victoria Fisheries Management Plan (FMP) seeks to contribute to development of sustainable fisheries by establishing a viable system for the management of the lake fisheries (LVFRP 2001). These goals are re-echoed in the national development programs and fisheries policies of the individual riparian states as spelt out in the Policy Mandates and Organizational Review Report for Kenya, the National Fisheries Policy for Uganda and the National Fisheries Sector Policy and Strategy Statement for Tanzania (MAAIF 2004, MARD 2000, MNRT 1997). However, available information highlights the concern that the distributions of the benefits from the lake are not equitable within the riparian states, between communities, households and individuals.