Mr. Edward Waiyaki

Email: ewaiyaki@kmfri.go.ke

As a marine social scientist, Mr. Edward Waiyaki's research interest lies in the social and economic dynamics of small-scale fisheries, with a particular focus on market access, structural exclusion, and multidimensional poverty in the artisanal marine fisheries sub-sector. He holds an MA degree in Social Policy for Development. His academic training grounds him in Social-Ecological Systems (SES) theory, the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework, Making Markets Work for the Poor (M4P/MSD), the Alkire-Foster Multidimensional Poverty Index, co-management theory, political ecology, and participatory research methods.

At the community level, this research equips coastal fishing households and local Beach Management Units with evidence to break cycles of debt-dependency and distress selling, while nationally it grounds Kenya's Blue economy and food security agenda in a rigorous socio-economic understanding of who actually benefits from fisheries value chains. This research advances global fisheries governance scholarship and speaks directly to the FAO's Small-Scale Fisheries Guidelines and the SDG 1 and SDG 14 agendas.

His commitment to participatory research reflects a conviction that meaningful, actionable knowledge about artisanal fisheries cannot be produced from a distance - it must be co-created with the fishers, traders, and processors whose livelihoods are under study, ensuring that research findings are grounded in lived realities rather than external assumptions and that resulting policy recommendations are more likely to be adopted and sustained by the communities they affect. Research that extracts time, knowledge, and labour from already economically vulnerable participants without fair recognition risks reproducing the very structural inequities it seeks to address. He strives to design novel, incentive-conscious research instruments - from structured community surveys to participatory scenario-planning tools, as a methodological principle, one that treats participants' time as valuable, encourages sustained and honest engagement, and builds the trust needed for iterative, long-term research relationships with coastal communities.

• ▹ Develop research proposals on socio-economic issues pertaining to Kenya's coastal and marine resources
• ▹ Data Collection and Analysis, Report writing
• ▹ Dissemination of research findings (via reports, publications, scientific presentations, stakeholder engagements)
• ▹ Mentoring students on attachment, interns and junior scientists

• ▹ Social dimensions of climate change
• ▹ Complex social systems (artisanal marine fisheries market systems)
• ▹ Socio-economic assessments

• ▹ MA – Erasmus University, 2013-2014
• ▹ MBA – Notre Dame University, 2002-2005
• ▹ BA – Kenyatta University, 1988-1991

• ▹ Committee Member – KMFRI Alcohol and Drug Abuse