The workshop of the study, Survey and Analysis of Aquaculture Development Research Priorities and Capacities was,, was organized by FAO and NACA and held at the SEAFDEC-NACA headquarters on 21-23 May 1997. The objectives of the study, in which 14 countries and territories/region in Asia participated, was to assist in maximizing the contribution of research to aquaculture development, promote regional collaboration in aquaculture research, and focus the attention of donors and development agencies on regional research and priorities.

The overall purpose of the workshop was to formulate a regional action plan to address priority aquaculture development research issues. Specifically, it was aimed to: (i) verify and endorse the draft Regional Synthesis of the survey; (ii) identify the countries/territories that were interested in participating in specific regional and sub-regional collaborative research activities, and prospective participating organizations and groups including government R & D institutions, private sector research institutes, non-government organizations, farmer associations; (iii) Pprepare project concepts for the collaborative research activities; and (iv) recommend key follow-up actions to implement collaborative research activities including the roles of national institutions and collaborating regional and international agencies and organizations.

The workshop was attended by 10 of the 14 countries/territoriesregion which participated in the Survey as well as seven regional and international organizations, other than FAO and NACA, and one group from the private sector. Representatives of the following countries, organizations, institutions and programmes attended the workshop: Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam, the Aquatic Animal Health Research Institute (AAHRI), SEAFDEC Aquaculture Department, AIT, FAO, FAO/RAP, ICLARM, Mekong River Commission, Shrimp Culture Research and Development Co. Ltd., Southeast Asia Aquatic Disease Control Project (SEAADCP), Danish-SE Asia Collaboration in Tropical Ecosystems Research and Training Project, and NACA. The list of participants appears as Annex 1.

Opening ceremony. The NACA Co-ordinator Hassanai Kongkeo and Dr Ziad Shehadeh of the FAO Fisheries Department welcomed the participants and gave the messages of NACA and FAO, respectively. Dr Kitjar Jaiyen, Deputy Director General of Thailand’s Department of Fisheries and Chairman of the NACA Governing Council was keynote speaker.

Mr Hassanai said the outputs of the study are essential in guiding NACA’s regional programme which has since evolved from a mainly bio-technically oriented development to one that places emphasis on sustainable development in consideration of the environmental and social issues. It will also help NACA’s initiative to further strengthen the network. He thanked the governments, the partner organizations and FAO for continuing to provide collaborative assistance to NACA.

Dr Shehadeh emphasized that sustained growth of aquaculture is only possible with continued investment in research. He said the need for research now is greater than ever with aquaculture being called upon to make up or at least reduce the expected shortfall in food fish supplies, and this in the face of increasing competition for resources, rising input costs and more exacting The need for research now is greater than ever. With production from capture fisheries at its natural limits, aquaculture is being called upon to make up or at least reduce the expected shortfall in food fish supplies. At the same time, increasing competition for resources, rising input costs and more exacting market standards are posing a challenge to aquaculture. There are alsomarket standards. Furthermore, there are pressing issues of sustainable development that must be addressed if current production levels are to be maintained, let alone expanded. Much of the basic information required to deal with these issues is lacking and must be generated through well focused research.

He believed it is appropriate that special attention be given to the identification of development issues and constraints, the clarification of the role that applied research can play in resolving these constraints, and the identification of opportunities for regional co-operation in research on issues of common concern. This is the overall objective of the current NACA-FAO survey and workshop, which was preceded by similar FAO efforts in Sub-Sahara Africa and in Latin America and the Caribbean, he informed the workshop. He said the outcome of the study will be of value to FAO Members in the region, the FAO Fisheries Department and regional office (RAP) and to NACA in the planning of future collaborative research activities in the region, as well as to bilateral and other international agencies.

Dr Kitjar Jaiyen said that aquaculture development in recent years has been impressive contributing well to food security and to the overall social and economic development. With its rapid development and increasing economic importance, the aquaculture sector has attracted more attention, a blessing and a burden, he remarked, explaining that while technology has developed rapidly, the other components -- such as legislation, policies and institutions -- which are needed to support and guide the rapidly expanding sector have not been adequately developed. He stressed that the management of sound aquaculture has become a complex task and that problems associated with sustainable aquaculture development, including the need to avoid conflicts with other sectors, demand interdisciplinary strategies. He pointed out that the aquaculture sector has yet to find an effective and successful multi-sectoral approach to its management -- an important task especially that aquaculture is situated in what is often called a grey area between agriculture and fisheries.

The NACA Council Chairman said the issue to consider carefully is on the type of research that will more effectively address national and regional problems. He said that experiences show that market forces, government policy, and social forces have strong influences on the management of sustainable aquaculture. In addition, there is also the concern over under-utilization of research outputs. Hindsight now shows that gains in production could be more than offset by erosion of the resource base and disruptive conflicts among common users, as well as other negative factors, that include threats on the marketing and trade of aquaculture products. He noted that little attention has been paid to these issues in the past.

Emphasizing the need for balance among research functions, he said that while research must continue to respond to the technical needs for increasing production in light of the continuing priority placed on higher production in government programmes, there are also the social and policy related problems of food security, poverty, sustainable resource management and utilization, and environmental protection that research must urgently tackle.

On improving capacities, he noted that governments are normally faced with the problem of scarce resources. This, coupled with declining donor support for fisheries research, makes it imperative for research efforts to be very focused and problem-oriented, relevant to issues, and cost-effective. It must also harness the combined resources of public and private institutions. In the context of regional collaboration, the NACA Chairman said that while research is basically a national responsibility, countries benefit much from regional collaboration even as regional co-operation draws on the collective strength of countries, and engenders the political will that can push research to the forefront of national development priorities.

The background, purposes of the study and objectives of the workshop were described by Pedro Bueno, Information Specialist and designated co-ordinator of the study for NACA. He also explained the workshop agenda. The salient features of the workshop include both plenary and working group sessions. Three working groups were constituted to discuss and formulate recommendations on the identified research issues and opportunities for regional collaboration. The workshop programme appears as Annex 2.

The result of the survey and analysis, reported in the Regional Synthesis, that had been previously forwarded to participants and governments, was presented by the project consultant, Ms Yong-ja Cho. The survey and analytical methodologies and limitations of the study were described and its findings and conclusions explained. The discussion focused on the constraints to development and to research, priority lists of national aquaculture development, national aquaculture development research, existing research efforts and research personnel, and the opportunities for regional collaboration with the view of verifying them with the national participants. The salient conclusions based on the Synthesis include the following:

The main teThe main technical constraints to development include lack of technologies for nutrition and feed development, genetic improvement, breeding and seed production, health and environmental management, and integrated and intensive fish farming systems. The key non-technological issues and constraints were weak interagency and institutional linkages, poor co-ordination among agencies, ineffective technology transfer and utilization, ineffective information exchange and dissemination, lack of skilled personnel, lack of understanding of impacts and implications of aquaculture development policies and plans, inadequate legislation and regulations specific to aquaculture, weak enforcement of regulations, low support for aquaculture in general and lack of support for aquaculture research in particular.

Collectively, the countries have a considerable number of research institutions with aquaculture development research programmes, research personnel and on-going research projects. Most of the research personnel specialize in the biological sciences.

Current development research priorities and research efforts of the countries address the technical constraints toin aquaculture development, focusing mainly on technical areas. DOn the other hand, despite the serious hindrance caused by issues related to institutional and management aspects ofof aquaculture research and aquaculture development, these issues are largely neglected in current research priorities and efforts ;and priorities hardly address them i.e., less than three percent of reported on-going research projects deal with such issues as co-ordinated planning, interagency linkages, technology utilization, socio-economic and environmental impacts, and implications of policies and management interventions.

Appropriate policies and institutional arrangements are essential to facilitate and support targeted research and desired benefits from technological innovations. The need to address non-technical issues has been noted by previous studies, including the Study ofStrategy for International Fisheries Research (SIFR) carried out in 1989-90, but little progress has been made on this area.

After a lengthy deliberation of the list of development and research constraints and the opportunities for regional collaboration, which include technical and non-technical topics, the workshop noted that the development of aquaculture is as much constrained by institutional or non-technical issues as bio-technical issues. It was therefore suggested that the workshop also give due due consideration toemphasis on both institutional and bio-technical constraintsthe latter in its deliberations, including the identification and selection of collaborative regional activities. and address them accordingly. This suggestion was in line with predicated on the perceived urgent need to generate knowledge and develop the tools to support management decisions and to help build an enabling environment for the effective conduct of research and the application of their results.

It was also noted that while the need for systems research is becoming more widely accepted , the interdisciplinary research efforts required for this approach have not progressed very far. Bilateral and international assistance to accelerate the transition, through training on the planning and management of interdisciplinary research and pilot projects, would be very timely at this juncture.

3. Summary of Country Statements

Following the presentation and discussion of the Regional Synthesis, each country representatives gave asummaries summary of their respective the country reports. The country presentations highlighted the (i) national aquaculture development research needs; (ii) constraints and issues in national aquaculture development; (iii) constraints and issues in aquaculture development research; and (iv) a brief description of the aquaculture development research capacity of the country. While providing further insight into these topicsthe national aquaculture development needs and priorities,, the national presentations confirmed the key constraints, needs and priorities in research and development as reported points noted in the Rregional Ssynthesis. The edited country reports will be published by FAO and NACA in a separate supplement at a later date.

14. The discussion focused on the identification of key issues and topics for collaborative regional research. This was done on the basis of the ranking, by national representatives, On the basis of the priority needs and issues suggestedpresented in the Regional Synthesis and the country reports, the participants identified the areas for regional collaborative research. The factors considered in rankingidentifying the areas for regional research included:are national development needs;, issues and constraints in planning and managing aquaculture development and research;, existing research efforts that address the needs, issues and constraints;, national capacity for research;, national interest to participate in a regional collaborative research;, and potential benefits from collaboration. The topics were then prioritized on the basis of the number of countries assigning priority to each topic. The result of this exercise is shown in Table 1 below.

Table 1. Prioritized list of collaborative research areas prepared by country representatives

The concentration on bio-technical topics was evident, partly due to the technical specialization of the participants and partly to the perception that institutional (non-technical) issues were not researchable. Some participants felt that institutional issues might be too sensitive for regional collaboration, as institutional matters and management systems are purely national concerns. However, after considerable debate, the majority felt that regional collaboration on this topic was warranted by common needs in non-sensitive general areas, such as the strengthening of national capacities in aquaculture planning and management, and in system-oriented research, as well as for facilitating information delivery and utilization within the region.

In narrowing the list to seven collaborative regional activities, the participants deleted "Genetic Improvement", which received high priority, due to the existence of a major international research effort -- the ICLARM-managed INGA (International Network on Genetics in Aquaculture ), to which many of the countries participating in the current workshop belonged, and which was open to membership by others. "Species Diversification", "Intensive Use of Inland waters and Stock Enhancement" and "Breeding and Seed pProduction" were collated as "Seed Production and Broodstock Development for Aquaculture and Fisheries Enhancement" ; "Technology Transfer" was included in a broader category entitled "Information Dissemination"; and institutional topics, other than information, were pooled under one heading "Planning and Management of Aquaculture Research and Development".

Although bio-technical topics for regional collaboration were presented in a disciplinary format, it was recognized that many of the technical issues were inter-related and research should be based on a systems approach, which is interdisciplinary in nature and is only now being applied to aquaculture. The participants therefore included an additional topic for capacity building in this type of research, particularly as applied to the development of rural aquaculture, entitled "Aquaculture Research for Rural Development". Accordingly, the proposed topics for regional collaboration, for which project concept papers could be formulated, and the number of countries subscribing to them, are shown in Table 2.

5. FORMULATION OF PROJECT CONCEPTS

Three working groups, each composed of representatives of countries and organizations -- the latter acting as resource persons ---- proposed 7 problem areas for development into regional/subregional projects. The exercise consisted of identified ying the key issues related to each of the identified topics problem area, directions for regional collaboration, and targeted achievements or outputs from the collaboration. It was agreed thesethat the results of this exercise would be the basis for formulating project the concept papers for the identified topics projects. Subsequently, the concept papers would be used to formulate, in turn, the basis for the formulation of specific project proposals. The results of the working group exercise are shown in Table 3.

Although the themes proposed for regional collaboration were largely approved, the weighting given to the themes was not totally supported by participants. Based on national statements on constraints to research and development, it was concluded in the synthesis that priority should be given to closing knowledge gaps and building tools and information bases that can support management decisions. Accordingly, institutional, policy and socio-economic issues were given parity with bio-technical issues. Despite this perceived parity, the participants gave higher priority to bio-technical issues (66% of recommended regional activities). However, the workshop did recommend three out of seven regional activities (33%) with a focus on development and management issues in aquaculture, information needs, and research and extension methodologies that involve the participation of farmers and rural communities i.e. farming systems research and extension.

Following discussions on ways and means of the various aspects related to achieving the stated objectives of the study and workshop, participants arrived at the the workshop made the following conclusions and recommendations. for follow-up action.

The workshop noted that aquaculture research had significant potential to contribute to social and economic development goals. This potential has not been realized due to various constraints many of which were highlighted in the study and by the workshop. Institutional strengthening and changes in institutional arrangements for aquaculture research may be required to increase the impact of research and its contribution to national development. The participants recommended that national priority be given to strengthening research capacity, and that well-targeted external assistance could effectively supplement national efforts to re-orient aquaculture research programmes to maximize their impact on national development.

It was noted that management of aquaculture has become a complex task, involving all levels of government and many disciplines and thus a concerted effort is required to build up tools and knowledge bases that will enable the sector to address economic, environmental, legal, social as well as technical issues. There is a need to further emphasize intersectoral, multidisciplinary and precautionary approach to management and development of aquaculture.

The workshop stressed the urgency for practical follow up on workshop recommendations. In this regard, it recommended that the workshop report including the project concepts be finalized and circulated as soon and as widely as possible.

The workshop recommended that FAO and NACA take responsibility for the developingdevelopment of and finalizing the project concepts for the identified areas of regional collaborationcooperation. The project concepts should be circulated to Governments, along with the workshop report, to indicate their interest and participation in specific regional projects. The drafts of the seven (7) project concepts are attached herewith as Annex 863.

A number of modalities for regional collaboration was discussedoutlined, with preference given tofor networking. The workshop recommended that existing network mechanisms (i.e. NACA, INGA, etc.) be used in project implementation and that technical lead centres be identified, as necessary, to complement existing NACA lead centres.

The workshop recommended that FAO and NACA bring the workshop recommendations to the attention of their regional bodies/Governing Council for consideration in the elaboration of their programmes of work. It was noted that the first meeting of the Aquaculture and Inland Fisheries Committee (AIFIC) of the FAO Asia Pacific Fisheries Commission in November 1997, and the NACA Governing Council Meeting in December 1997 present early opportunities for this purpose.

Concerning the participation of national bodies (including non-government organizations, private sector, and farmer groups) in the regional projects, the workshop agreed that this will be up to the national governments, depending on the nature and requirements of eacha particular project. In this regard, tThe workshop noted that the participation of the appropriate private sector and non-non-government entities would strengthen research efforts and therefore should be encouraged.

In connection with the sustainability of collaborative activities, it was agreednoted that national commitment was essential and that follow up should not be predicated on external support. Support should be sought to strengthen on-going efforts, rather than to initiate activities and in this connection, countries were encouraged to also approach bilateral sources of assistance. . It was further noted that regional actions do not replace or duplicate national actions and efforts; rather, they support national efforts under a regional scheme. Governments were therefore encouraged to address key issues identified at the workshop within the limits of their resources.

In line with the recommendation to use existing mechanisms as well as the need to link with related regional/international programmes, the representatives of the regional and international bodies expressed willingness to participate in and support the follow-up activities that are within their respective programmes. The workshop noted the expressions of support, which should be duly considered in the formulation of the project proposalsconcepts. It was further suggested that the concerned regional and international agencies could take initiative and assist with the implementation of the national programmes that are within their mandate orare areas of interest.

Dr Rukhsana Anjum of Pakistan gave thanked the conveners the vote of thanks on behalf of the government participants. She thanked FAO and NACA for the opportunity to take part in the study and workshop which she described as a very timely and priority activity for Pakistan and, clearly, from the survey findings and workshop discussions, for the region. She reiterated government commitment and support to regional collaborationthe project and urged a rapid follow-up of the recommendations.

Mr Pedro Bueno, who is the coordinator of the project for NACA, Mr Pedro Bueno thanked the national co-ordinators for their inputs into the study and workshop, the representatives of other organizations for their contributions to the workshop as well as in the regional survey, the project consultant Ms Yong-Ja Cho for her excellent assistance to FAO and NACA , and to Dr Ziad Shehadeh of FAOFAO’s FIRI for his guidance of the study. He thanked the chairpersons and moderators of the various sessions for effectively guiding the deliberations.

Dr Ziad Shehadeh, on behalf of FAO, thanked the country representatives and those from other organizations for contributing to the successful implementation of the study. He reiterated FAO’s appreciation to NACA for carrying out the study and thanked the Co-ordinator and the staff for organizing the workshop.

The NACA Co-ordinator, Mr Hassanai Kongkeo, closed the workshop with a word of appreciation to those involved in the study and workshop and assured of NACA’s active follow up of the recommendations. He wished everyone a pleasant journey home.