Harnessing fishery resources: swimming the tide to Africa's development: issues paper 3

Abstract

Fisheries and aquaculture are important natural resources with great potential to contribute to sustainable broad-based development in Africa. Fisheries and aquaculture contribute to nutrition and food security, create employment and income opportunities, and generate export earnings. The importance of fisheries and aquaculture resources for Africa were highlighted. The fact that every economy needs the natural environment and the goods and services it provides was clearly stated, emphasizing the need for Africa to ensure that its renewable natural resources, such as fish stocks, are sustainably managed for posterity. With these as background, a number of crucial questions were identified for discussion at the forthcoming African Development Forum. By finding answers to these questions, the Forum would extend earlier work done in this area, and provide the intellectual framework for Africa to begin to harness its immense fisheries and aquaculture resources for economic growth, development and poverty alleviation. The overall objective of this contribution is to provide material and background input for the segment of ADF-VIII which will discuss sustainable fisheries and aquaculture development for economic growth, poverty reduction and the overall improvement of the living standards of Africans. The issues paper complements the ADF-VIII concept note and should be read in conjunction with it. It identifies a set of key issues that should inform the relevant ADF-VIII deliberations.