The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has launched the Fisher Communities Resilience Enhancement Project to support fisher communities in South Sudan to effectively exploit the fisheries sector towards commercialization and economic resilience. The project, funded by the Kingdom of the Netherlands, will focus on building capacities at national and local levels to gather reliable data that will be used for accurate estimation of total catches from the waters of South Sudan and their economic value.

The USD 5 million project was launched on Thursday 6 January 2020 following a three-day inception workshop attended by implementing partners to streamline the project rollout plan. The project was officially launched by the Embassy of the Kingdom of Netherlands, FAO, the Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries and other implementing partners.

With over 1.7 million South Sudanese dependent on fishing as a source of livelihoods, South Sudan fishing communities still lack the capacity to adequately exploit the fisheries resources to their economic benefits. The project will empower local communities by increasing the fish harvest from the waters of South Sudan and reducing post-harvest loss of fish.

 “South Sudan is one of the few countries in the world where fish die out of old age”, pointed out Meshack Malo, FAO Representative. “South Sudanese could fix some of their own economic challenges through adequate investments in the sector. The lack of supply routes allowing the transportation of fresh fish from the fishing sites to far market locations remains one of the main challenges for the fishing sector” he added.

 “We have just started a five-year programme which is all about resilience through the development of data programming that empowers the people to exploit their talent and natural resources and to be able to take a step ahead and develop themselves”, said Marc Mazairac, First Secretary for Development Cooperation of the Embassy of the Netherlands.

FAO will implement the project in close collaboration with the Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries at both national and state levels. While speaking at the official opening of the inception workshop, the Minister of Livestock and Fisheries, James Janka Duku said that “no proper scientific assessments have been carried out to assess the amount of fishery resources in South Sudan, the existing varieties of species and their economic value. “However, it is estimated that the fish that can be caught from South Sudan waters in a year amounts between 400 000 and 450 000 metric tonnes. This output from the fisheries sector could inject about USD 56 million into the economy every year,” said Mr. Duku.

The 2013 crisis impelled many conflict-affected households to resort to fishing as an initial survival strategy when other foods were not available, increasing the contribution and importance of small-scale fishing to livelihood from 6.8 percent to 10.2 percent. The reliance on this source of income in times of crisis has led to a high concentration of populations near water sources, such as rivers and swamps.

This project will address challenges to the development of the fisheries sector in South Sudan including significant post-harvest losses, limited connection between fishing grounds and consumers markets, lack of data and available information on the sector, lack of capacity for support to the sector, governance issues inhibiting private sector development and lack of coordination and support to the sector.

In cooperation with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), local industries will be supported to enhance their capacity in producing, building and repairing fiberglass canoes, setting up a value chain that will facilitate the provision of canoes to fishers on a payback basis. Fisher-folks will also gain access to fishing equipment kiosks in their areas, where they can easily acquire necessary inputs to enable them to fish.

Overall, the project is expected to lift over 8 000 people out of malnutrition, provide 1 500 locally created jobs and increase the volume and quality of fish traded from the key target fishing locations by 40 percent.