Khartoum - A delegation from the Norwegian Development Agency (NORAD) and the embassy in Sudan along with FAO Deputy Representative visited the FAO supported Fish Research Centre (FRC) of the Ministry of Animal Resources in ElShagera, Khartoum, established in 1953

FAO provided support to upgrade the facility to a National Aquaculture Centre, a training hub for the public, academic and private sectors. The support provided by FAO also included rehabilitation of the hatchery, water ponds, and nurseries. Support for strengthening the fish laboratory and enhancing the quality of fish feeding was also provided.

The Director of the Centre highlighted the importance of the fisheries sector in Sudan in terms of food and nutrition security. The fish supply in Sudan sharply declined from 70,000 to 25,000 tons in the year 2012 and the Sudanese per capita fish consumption is around 2 Kg/Year which is far below the world average per capita fish consumption of around 18 Kg/Year and the African average of 9 Kg/year. Sudan has a vast scope of increasing the aquaculture production by adopting advanced methods of fish breeding, hatchery management and grow-out culture of tilapia. He also stressed the need for more capacity building in order to enhance the outreach of the Centre to include the private fish farmers in their program. The Norwegian delegation who visited the Centre upgraded by FAO showed interest in aquaculture development. Mr Kristoffer Kokvold concluded the visit by saying “the visit to FAO and the Fish Research Centre gave valuable insights when assessing the broader picture of the fisheries sector in Sudan. NORAD delegation has been in Sudan to evaluate the Norwegian funded project “Sustainable management of marine fisheries resources in the Sudanese Red Sea State”, which over the past 6 years has contributed to the fisheries sector through mapping the marine resources, strengthening the capabilities of the key institutions and developing and maintain a database on fish stocks and fish landings in the Red sea state.