• Mr. HASSEN AKROUT
PROJECT CORDINATOR
• Mr. KHALIL CHOUEIRI
FAO REPRESENTATIVE-TUNIS
• Mr. FAWAZ FOKELADEH
UNDP REPRESENTATIVE-TUNIS
• Mr. YASUHISA KATO
DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS FAO-ROME
• Mr. MOHSEN BOULAARES
CHIEF OF DIVISION FOR THE REGIONAL
PROGRAMME - UNDP - NEW YORK
• Mr. MOULDI ZOUAOUI
MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE - TUNISIA
MEDRAP II
Mr Minister.
Excellencies.
Ladies and gentlemen.
Dear colleagues.
I am particularly glad to open this seminar, which is held under the markable supervision of his Excellency the Minister of Agriculture, who emphazing by his presence, the full support that the Tunisian Government is giving to this Project and its particular interest in the field of aquaculture at the national as well as the regional level.
May I, on this occasion, thank him and his staff at the Ministry and at the Commissariat Général à la Pêche, for the great help they provided for the Project. On the same occasion, I would like to promise Mr. Minister that the Project will go on, thanks to the collaboration effort of its members, implementing a permanent cooperation between the countries on the two sides of the Mediterranean, South and North. We hope in this way to satisfy the ambition of our people to more and more peace, brotherhood and full development.
May I also welcome the representatives of UNDP and FAO as well as their honourable representatives in Tunisia and thank all of them for their particular care and their material and moral support in order to promote aquaculture in the area.
Their effort is all the more remarkable as it is done within a world full of challenges which require from all of used particularly from the international organizations lots of initiative and imagination in order to make people sufferings lighter and to help them accomplish full development through a durable cooperation.
I would also like to thank the representatives of specialized agencies for accepting our invitation to attend this seminar to share with us their experiences, as well as the members of the Steering Committee, be they from participating or associated countries.
Finally, I thank you all for coming and wish you a lot of success in your work and a happy stay among us.
FAO TUNIS
Mr. Minister.
Mr. UNDP Resident Representative
Messrs,
I am particularly glad to welcome the participants to this meeting, which constitutes, at this stage, a common will of action in a very promising field in the framework of food production. We owe it to UNDP support, to the strong interest of the member countries and to the generous hosting of MEDRAP by the Tunisian government.
As you know, FAO grants a top importance to aquaculture development and has supported upon a programme of action, resulting from a deep analysis of priority needs and potentialities of the member countries.
The essence of the problem is the following: if sea does not produce enough, we should find ways and means to produce more proteins. Many countries have found a reply to their food preoccupation by developing aquaculture. Others have the possibilities to produce enough proteins.
MEDRAP, which constitutes a model of North-South cooperation and consequently, a link of exchange of knowledge and transfer of technologies has already undertaken, during its first phase, many activities aiming especially at vulgarizing aquaculture and elaborating pilot projects at different phases of conception, of feasability, as well as socio-economic studies at the national and regional level.
In its second phase, MEDRAP is expected to implement the notion of networks in a way of establishing a permanent, rational and institutional cooperation among the countries.
Our seminar requires thinking about models of cooperation and mechanisms allowing a durable collaboration in the field of research, training, extension, production and information.
The experience acquired by FAO through the world would it be in Asia, Latin America or elsewhere should allow to direct and favour your works.
Therefore, I would like to address the delegates and to wish them full success in their works and a happy stay in Tunisia.
Again, I would like on this occasion, to pay a tribute to his excellency the Minister of Agriculture who has always been concentrating on a dynamic and durable development of the rural world. Thank you.
UNDP TUNIS
Mr. Minister.
Mr. FAO Representative.
Mr. Chief of Division of Regional Programme of UNDP (HQ)
Ladies and Gentlemen.
On behalf of UNDP Representation in Tunis, I would like to welcome all participants at this first meeting of the Steering Committee of MEDRAP II.
This meeting has, in fact, a particular signification, as it constitutes the first operational activity of the Project and thus marks its effective start.
May I also express my strong gratefulness and my heavy sincere thanks to the Minister of Agriculture, who, in spite of his timetable, has honored us with his presence, and thus, confirmed the good will of TUNISIA to do its best, in order to ensure the Project success and to contribute actively to the promotion of the promising sector of aquaculture and to favour an active cooperation of the MEDRAP countries.
Such a cooperation can only promote a more efficient and more rational use of the resources, technologies and competences available in the member countries of MEDRAP II.
Besides, it is in this sprit that the Tunisian Minister of Agriculture, in accordance with UNDP and FAO, proposes to share with MEDRAP to share with MEDRAP II the benefits of the realizations of a national project which had started recently and which carries out the study of aquacole potentialities of the tunisian Eastern coast line as well as the organization of a system of evaluation and choice of sites appropriate to projects of investment in the sector of aquaculture.
Of course, we welcome this Tunisian initiative which aims at promoting the collaboration between the countries through the «Networking» approach and we encourage the countries to follow the same approach and to set up similar links of cooperation and complementation among their national programmes in the field of aquaculture and MEDRAP II Project in order to promote the use of this constructive modality of regional collaboration: the «Networking».
Mr. Minister,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
UNDP, as well as FAO, are particularly proud of being able to back up the efforts of your countries in the realization of MEDRAP II which represents to us a good example of cooperation among European and Arab countries around the Mediterranean.
In that respect, I would like to thank our twin organization, FAO, for its continuous efforts, in order to ensure the start of this important Project on solid basis and under the best possible conditions.
I would like to thank particularly the Fisheries Department of FAO, represented by Mr. KATO as well as my colleague and friend Mr. KHALIL CHOUEIRI, the FAO representative in Tunis, who, personnally, looks after this Project, without omitting Mr. HASSEN AKROUT, Project Coordinator who gives MEDRAP II the most precious output of his large experience and this reassures us that the realization of this Project is in good hands.
It is on this optimistic note that I would like to conclude by renewing to the participants and organizers of this meeting, my wishes of full success in their works which constitutes an excellent start of MEDRAP II.
Thank you.
FAO ROME
His Excellency the Minister of Agriculture.
The distinguished delegates.
The Representative from Agencies and Institutions.
Dear Colleagues.
Ladies and Gentlemen.
I would like to express my deep appreciation for the warm welcome received upon arrival in TUNISIA, and to the Government authorities and people for hosting and organizing our seminar and meeting in Tunis.
It is a great pleasure for me to attend the seminar and Steering Committee meeting on my first visit to TUNISIA, a country famed for its beauty and cultural heritage.
Many of the participants here today have been involved with MEDRAP since its conception and are therefore more conversant with its achievements than I, since I joined the Food and Agriculture Organization only recently.
It is common knowledge here today have been involved with MEDRAP I was instrumental in further developing aquaculture in the Mediterranean, through its regional approach, transfer of technologies and manpower development.
MEDRAP II will bank of these achievements by introducing and developing a networking approach amongst the participating and associated countries.
This will ultimately lead to a self-sustained inter-governmental body for regional aquaculture development in the Mediterranean, as already reiterated at the least tripartite review meeting of MEDRAP I held in Tunis in October 1986.
The intention was confirmed by the representatives of MEDRAP participating countries at the regional workshop held in CYPRUS in December 1988.
At long last, MEDRAP II is now operational and as part of the objectives it is going to achieve and the activities it is going to undertake, I reckon that one of its foremost and innovative aspects is the establishment and functioning of the governing body, the Network Steering Committee with UNDP's financial inputs and FAO's technical assistance.
The Network Steering Committee will be able to determine and implement, in an independent and autonomous manner, regional aquaculture development strategies for the benefit of the Mediterranean countries and their people.
I wish this seminar together with the meeting much success in its endeavours and deliberations, and wish to confirm continued technical support by the FAO Fisheries Department towards the achievement of its goals.
UNDP NEW YORK
His Excellency the Minister of Agriculture.
Mr. Director of Fisheries Operations.
Mr. UNDP Representative.
Mr. FAO representative.
Dear Participants.
I am particulaly glad for the presence of his excellency the Minister for the opening of the seminar on «Networking» in the field of aquaculture in the Mediterranean which will be followed by the Steering Committe meeting of MEDRAP Project.
On behalf of our Regional Director, I thank you very much Mister Minister, for the honour you are making us and for the interest you are according to this activity.
As you know, Mister Minister, this project is one of the corner stones of our programme of interregional cooperation. It brings together the European countries with the Arab ones having in common an interest in exploiting, protecting and conserving the Mediterranean.
At a time, when the whole world is more and more conscious of the necessity of building up a durable development, the need to produce while protecting and preserving the potential of the environment production, becomes of a vital importance.
As food products are getting scarcer and scarcer, aquaculture which is a modern technology for producing part of them is, in this context, a basic tool to reach the double objective of production and preservation.
Mister Minister, without entering into the details of the history of this project, please let me remind you that the regional programmes of the arab and european countries grant this project a high priority. Even though this second phase has been delayed for a certain period of time, we think that the delay was not a consequence of negative results of the first one.
On the contrary, the time of reflection and the care that has been taken to cast solid basis for a programme of cooperation understand by all partners, are to us, a good guarantee for the success of the common enterprise in which we are all associated.
In fact, the experience has shown that the preparation phase of a network of cooperation is the most delicate task, the longest and sometimes the most unpleasant.
As a matter of fact, this period has been devoted to creating the necessary conditions of a cooperative arrangement, self sufficient and durable, where the interest of all participants is preserved and their obligations well determined, fully accepted and assumed.
This phase of preparation is as difficult as the financial resources at our disposal are limited and the state of spirit of the UNDP governing council is not favourable to increase the regional resources.
On the contrary, the next cycle will suffer from a further decrease that will reach about 30% of the actual resources. Consequently, the necessity of the catalytic role of UNDP resources are more and more evident, and the mobilization of efforts and the contribution of the participating countries are more and more necessary.
UNDP is particularly honoured by contributing to the construction of this regional enterprise. We thank all the participating countries for their efforts and their sense of responsibility.
Our thanks are particularly addressed to Tunisia, the host country of the Project and Head Quarter of the coordination of activities.
I also congratulate the countries that have agreed on ensuring the responsibility of the technical coordination of networking and wish them the best success.
Finally, Mister Minister, I would not like to conclude without addressing my thanks to FAO Organization, our partner in this Project, to its Resident Representative in TUNISIA and to the Project Coordinator whose dynamism and competence are now cristal clear, thanks to the result of the activities undertaken especially preparation of the work programmes, of the technical networks and by the quality of preparation and organization of this seminar.
I wish to all participants a comfortable stay in TUNISIA and a fruitful and productive meeting.
By His Excellency MOULDI ZOUAOUI
TUNISIA
Excellencies
Ladies and Gentlemen.
It is my pleasure to attend this seminar with you in order to express the interest of the Tunisian Government in this sector, the sector of fishing, regarding its importance in reinforcing international cooperation and in improving food production. I would like to thank all those who contributed to the organization of this seminar and to the initiation of this Project. May I thank in a particular way the United Nations Organization for Development, Food and Agriculture Organization as well as all those who borne the travel to participate to this seminar. May I finally greet the effort you have all done for the success of this Project.
This seminar can be considered as the first of its kind regarding its theme, its use of Networking as well as its comprehensive aspect since it groups several countries from the Mediterranean, some of which are European and others are Arab and finally regarding the scope of cooperation between the two sides of this sea which we seek to make a peace lake as it has always been cross-roads of civilization. For all these reasons, I like to declare that Tunisia will not save any effort to support this Project and to provide it with all the means of success so that it benefits to all our countries.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The fishing sector has a privileged position in our country because it provides food security, employment and because it improves the financial balance since it brings in more than 100 millions TD in foreign currency and employs 25.000 labourers and contributes to ensure food security.
Investments in the field of aquaculture has reached 16 Million Dinars during the last three years and has allowed us to export 900 Tons for 13 Million T.D. In the next five years, we are expecting a production of 3.000 Tons. The multiplication of this production more than three times in five years requires from us a continuous support of investment, training and research so that we provide the necessary human and material resources. Providing these resources can be realized through international cooperation and Mediterranean cooperation.
Tunisia has set a great number of regulations to encourage this sector and to reach this goal. I have an ultimate conviction that realizing these goals must necessarily rely on the improvement of international and regional cooperation and MEDRAP is a live sample of this cooperation. That is why our Government is sustaining fully this Project.
Finally, I would like to renew my thanks to all of you, for participating in this seminar and our full support for the successful implementation of your Project. I also renew my thanks to the international organizations for facilitating your meeting, your cooperating for the best of our people and of our Mediterranean countries. I wish you a good stay among us and full success for this seminar and thank you.
