12. The Secretariat outlined the recommendations made at the Eleventh Session of CIFA and summarized the activities that had been undertaken in response during the intersessionnal period. He also referred to specific responses to these recommendations which would be covered by follow-up presentations during the Session.
13. The Committee noted these activities with appreciation. An overarching response to addressing fisheries statistics will be presented to the Committee on Fisheries (COFI) in February 2003 under a Draft Strategy for Improving Reporting in Capture Fisheries. It is anticipated that the discussion and hopefully the adoption of the strategy by COFI would provide guidance and focus in addressing the statistics issues that were discussed at the last CIFA session. The Committee also noted that the specific interests and requests of member Countries were taken into consideration in the composition of ad hoc working groups set up on the recommendation of the last Session.
14. The Secretariat presented Document FI: CIFA/XII/2002/Inf.4 by summarising the main conclusions and recommendations of the Technical Consultation on Legal Frameworks and Economic Policy Instruments for Sustainable Commercial Aquaculture in Africa South of the Sahara which was held in Arusha, Tanzania, from 4 to 7 December 2001.
15. The Committee re-iterated the high potential for commercial aquaculture development in the Region as well as the growing interest to develop this sector. It was noted that donor and government focus in aquaculture had traditionally been in smallholder sub-sectors, promoting aquaculture as a cheap source of animal protein leaving out economic incentives from aquaculture. Consequently, commercial aquaculture had felt left out and was equally in need of support for development.
16. Of the main impediments to the development of commercial aquaculture in sub-Saharan Africa, namely the insufficient and reliable supplies of feed, capital and seed as well as the limited domestic and foreign investments in commercial aquaculture, the difficult access to capital was identified as being the most important limiting factor. Many delegates pointed out that access to capital was rendered difficult by various factors of which the reluctance of financing institutions to lend due to their perception that investments in aquaculture bore high risk of failure, frequent lack of collateral by borrowers, high interest rates charged by lending institutions, and the lack of knowledge on the part of potential borrowers on the modalities of applying for loans. Some delegates also pointed out that the unavailability and insufficient quantity of good quality seeds was still a serious obstacle to commercial aquaculture development in their respective countries.
17. The Committee recommended that awareness should be created among funding institutions about the feasibility of commercial aquaculture as an economically viable and bankable activity. The Committee underlined the need for each country to have a strategy for aquaculture development.
18. The Team Leader of the Regional Support Unit of the Sustainable Fisheries Livelihoods Programme (SFLP) in West Africa presented the SFLP report of activities during the inter-session period. He introduced his presentation by informing the Session of the participatory selection of themes and countries for three Pilot Projects. Twelve countries would implement these projects:
Improvement of the Policies and Institutions for Co-Management in Inland Waters: Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Mali;
Post-harvest Livelihoods Issues: Cameroon, Chad, The Gambia, and Senegal;
Participatory Coastal Fisheries Management: Congo, Gabon, Guinea and Mauritania.
19. The first project was approved by the SFLP Steering Committee in July 2002 and started in November 2002. The formulation of the second and third ones started in October and November 2002 respectively and were expected to be approved early in 2003.
20. The Committee was informed of the main activities undertaken by the SFLP during the intersessional period in inland fisheries according to the seven expected Outputs of the SFLP logical framework.
21. The Secretariat introduced this agenda item on the basis of document CIFA/XII/2002/Inf.6. It was recalled that the Riparian countries of Lake Tanganyika have endeavoured to implement recommendations made in the past sessions in spite of political, financial and technical constraints.
22. The Committee discussed the issue of strengthening the future role of the CIFA Sub-Committee for Lake Tanganyika and the establishment of a Regional Fishery Body for the Lake. The Committee noted that there is still an urgent need to create a regional fisheries management authority for the Lake.
23. The Committee was informed that the Riparian Countries, in collaboration with GEF, UNDP, AfDB and FAO, have formulated the Lake Tanganyika Fisheries and Biodiversity Project (LT-FBDP). This project will be managed by a regional fisheries management authority after the convention would have been signed and ratified. The Committee was also informed that the AfDB would subsequently fund the fisheries component on Lake Tanganyika.
24. The Committee commended these initiatives and recommended that the riparian countries of Lake Tanganyika resolve, support, and speed up the establishment of an intergovernmental fishery body for Lake Tanganyika as soon as possible.
25. The Secretariat presented document CIFA/XII/2002/Inf.7, summarizing the recommendations of the COFI Sub-Committee on Aquaculture, which was held from 18 to 22 April 2002 in Beijing, China. At its Twenty-fourth Session, the Committee on Fisheries (COFI) decided to establish a Sub-Committee on Aquaculture to provide a forum for consultation and discussion on aquaculture and to advise COFI on technical and policy matters related to aquaculture and on the work to be performed by FAO in the subject matter field of aquaculture.
26. The Sub-Committee recognized the important role that aquaculture could play in improving livelihoods, generating income, and stimulating national and regional development and identified the following as key priority areas for future work:
27. The Sub-Committee also recognized the current inadequacy of Regular Programme funds to successfully carry out the activities recommended during this Session. It requested that the FAO Fisheries Department reviews its Medium-Term Plan (MTP) for its compatibility with the recommendations made during this Session, and develop new programme entities with budget requests, as appropriate, to accommodate these un-funded needs, and submit to the next COFI Session. The Sub-Committee requested the FAO Fisheries Department to make a report on its efforts in this regard, and present this to the next Session of the Sub-Committee.
28. The Committee thanked COFI for creating the Sub-Committee and expressed their gratitude to the presenter for the succinct encapsulation of the Sub-Committee’s efforts, noting that the establishment of this Sub-Committee was a firm acknowledgement of the importance and potential of aquaculture in Africa. The Committee also stressed that, as concluded by the Sub-Committee, there was a pressing need for additional financial support to the sub-sector at national and sub-regional levels.
29. Some delegates questioned how the participation at the sub-Committee was decided. The Secretariat reported that all Members of FAO and approved IGOs and NGOs were invited to participate, and participation was decided by national governments. It was recognized that national priorities and financial constraints might have prevented some Members from attending.
30. Several Delegates further noted that the recommendations would be strengthened by being directed to specific targets; more prescriptive in nature. The Secretariat indicated that the 2002 meeting was the first for the Sub-Committee and future meetings were indeed intended to be more targeted, addressing issues with well-defined stakeholders.
31. The Committee was informed that the Twenty-fifth Session of COFI, 24 to 28 February 2003, would submit the outcome of the First Session of the COFI Sub-Committee on Aquaculture for consideration. It was further informed that the Second Session of the Sub-Committee would be held in August 2003 in Norway.
32. The Secretariat presented document CIFA/XII/2002/Inf.8, “Status and Development of the African Water Resource Database”. The paper provided a summary on the status and development of the African Water Resource Database (AWRD) in order to determine its use and future development. The AWRD is a Geographical Information System (GIS) that is an expansion and enhancement of the work by ALCOM’s Water Resource Database (WRD) for Sub-Saharan Africa, which has been extended to cover the entire African continent. The core datasets which populate the AWRD include: various depictions of surface water bodies, multiple watershed models; aquatic species; rivers; administrative boundaries; population density; soils; satellite imagery; and many other physiographic and climatological data types. To display and analyse the data, the AWRD contains an assortment of new custom-designed applications and tools. These tools are aimed at facilitating responsible inland aquatic resource management, and thus promote food security.
33. A set of applications that illustrate various decision support scenarios using the AWRD are being developed as examples and aids to training. Benefits that can be derived from the use of the AWRD were listed, and short-term and long-term development activities were proposed along with some suggested actions for consideration by the Committee. The Committee was informed that the first version of the AWRD would be released as an FAO Technical paper along with a CD-ROM in the second quarter of 2003.
34. The Committee complimented FAO on the presentation of the material and acknowledged that Geographical Information System (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) are powerful tools for fishery and aquaculture management, planning, and development. The systems allow for the integration of different types of information, e.g. fishery statistics, into a cohesive programme that, because of its visual nature, is easy to understand and was informative. The Committee acknowledged that systems such as the AWRD are excellent means to attract and direct investments in aquaculture and fisheries development.
35. The delegates exchanged ideas on further action in the development and use of such systems, and noted that collaboration and cooperation among institutions, sub-regions and regions will be necessary in order to apply the systems effectively to aquaculture and fishery development. The Committee agreed that the precise nature of the collaboration and cooperation would need to be determined in order to build synergies and avoid duplication. In light of the fact that inland waters are used by a variety of stakeholders, the Committee stressed that collaboration and cooperation would also be required with a number of ministries other than fisheries and aquaculture administrations/ministries.
36. The Committee identified various strategies to facilitate cooperation. Examples included the establishment of web sites for individual institutions and networks, the convening of workshops, and the provision of elements for the development of satellite based communication systems. It was suggested that workshops could also serve as an avenue for updating national databases on fishery resources and other relevant information. It was felt that systems being expanded and enhanced would also need to be linked to other established sources of on-line information such as FishBase.
37. The Committee noted that there were still issues to be resolved in the use and development of information sources such as the AWRD. These included how the information system would be maintained, who would have access to the data, how would changes to the database be made such that all users are satisfied with the content, and how would “official” data, i.e. submitted by Members, and “unofficial” data, i.e. gathered elsewhere, should be handled. The Committee stated that the system should allow for analysis at the ecosystem and watershed levels, rather than merely at the country, i.e. political level.
38. The Committee recommended that:
