As Nigeria continues to explore the potential of its blue economy, questions around access, adaptation, and long-term viability remain central, particularly for communities that depend on fishing and aquaculture for their livelihoods.
One recent study, published in the World Journal of Advanced Research and Reviews (2025), examines how low-cost technologies can support more sustainable fisheries in developing countries. Among the contributors is maritime professional Tairat Abiola Titiloye, whose experience in small-scale fisheries and coastal development helped shape the study’s applied focus.
The article — co-authored with Ruth Hungevu and others — evaluates tools such as solar-powered fishing gear, mobile inventory apps, and real-time water quality monitoring systems. Rather than showcasing new technologies, the study asks a more grounded question: what makes these tools actually usable in low-resource contexts?
From Equipment to Uptake: What Makes Technology Stick
Titiloye’s contribution to the study draws from her field experience in Lagos and Ogun States, where she has worked with fishing cooperatives and women-led processing groups. Her focus was not on whether a tool worked in ideal conditions, but whether it could be adopted in communities with limited electricity, patchy internet, and tight margins.
She argued for design adjustments that respond to real-world barriers:
- Offline functionality for apps
- Low-maintenance solar equipment
- Interfaces usable by people with limited formal education
This perspective helped frame the study’s emphasis on usability, not just innovation.
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Making Room for Those Often Left Out
Titiloye’s work also addresses gaps in inclusion. While women play key roles in fish processing, logistics, and local market sales, they’re often excluded from interventions designed around fishing vessels or harvest techniques.
Through training modules developed with women’s cooperatives, Titiloye supported the use of mobile apps for pricing, inventory, and coordination. In one example cited in the paper, access to solar-powered cold storage enabled a group of women processors to reduce spoilage and negotiate better prices through collective transport and scheduling.
This hands-on insight helped shape the study’s argument for more gender-aware tools, not through separate programmes, but by designing for the actual structure of local value chains.
Powering Systems that Already Exist
Energy use is a recurring theme in the study. Titiloye contributed an analysis of how kerosene-powered lighting and cooling systems — common in fishing operations — carry ongoing financial and environmental costs.
The paper makes the case for solar-powered alternatives, where they offer cost parity without added maintenance burden. In aquaculture, IoT-based monitoring is highlighted as a way to reduce disease risks and stabilise yields. But again, Titiloye’s input cautions that these systems only matter if users can run and maintain them with minimal external support.
Keeping Research Grounded in Policy and Practice
The study aligns with Nigeria’s National Fisheries Policy (2021–2025) and broader African Union goals on the blue economy. Titiloye contributed to the section mapping how recommendations could sit within current policy frameworks — not as parallel efforts, but as integrated components that build on what’s already underway.
She also helped draft parts of the study’s strategic roadmap, which includes financing models for cooperatives, digital infrastructure in rural zones, and small grants or incentives for first-time adopters of clean-tech tools.
Working With What’s There
Titiloye’s approach is not centred on pilot programmes or large-scale transformation. Her contribution to the paper reflects a focus on incremental change, supporting people already working in the system, with tools that reduce waste, lower costs, or improve negotiation power in the supply chain.
In that sense, her work is less about showcasing new ideas and more about reinforcing what’s already viable — and making it slightly easier, safer, or more stable.
