Easy entry, which requires no capital to start operating and no formal qualifications and the fisheries sector, provides opportunities for many of the poor and vulnerable people.

Fish processing and trading at the artisan level provides diversified employment opportunities in fishing communities. Although little is understood about poverty in the post-harvest sector yet there is a wide diversity of academic and civil society skills that understand wider poverty issues and this could be applied to the sector to increase understanding of post-harvest poverty in the country.

In addition, the Gambia poverty reduction strategy provides a valuable framework for addressing poverty that could be directly applied to poverty in the post-harvest sector and to guide support for poverty reduction approaches.

The diversity and experience of representative bodies in fisheries can generally provide a template for better representation of stakeholders in the post-harvest sector in the future. Meanwhile, the existing networking and linkages between the women in the sector could be improved upon to create a more formal institution for their representation and a source for collateral to secure formal bank loans for their operations.

Stabilization of fish supplies at current levels does offer the opportunity of maintaining current contributions of the sector to the economy. However, increases in supply are possible through better resource management, use of unexploited resources, habitat restoration as well as exploration and development of aquaculture.

These could increase the opportunities for food security for the poor consumers and employment for the poor.  Many, if not all of the specific issues faced by the sub-sector in the Gambia are common to other countries and there is a widespread local, regional and global knowledge of post-harvest technical issues, sustainable fuel wood production and alternative livelihoods that could be taped into by the sector

Whilst access to some international markets may be difficult by he poor players, other regional and local markets do provide options for expansion.