A critical first step in understanding vulnerability in inland fishing communities is to move away from classical fishery definitions that consider only the resource and harvest methods and, instead, recognize that fisheries operate across broad domains including the natural resource and its ecosystem, people and livelihoods, institutions and governance systems, and external drivers. This lesson learned provides an overview of the outcome of recently completed 2-year project funded by the Challenge Program on Water and Food and undertaken by the WorldFish Center with the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement in France and Mali, the Nigerian Institute for Freshwater Fisheries Research, and the Institut d’Economie Rurale in Mali. The project aimed to address the concerns about the nature of vulnerability and possible ways to strengthen the resilience of inland fishing communities.