This event- Fisheries Communications
Workshop on Harnessing the Power of Media to Raise Awareness on the issues of
the African Fisheries Sector- is the culmination of enormous collective efforts
which began with conceptualization of the idea by World Bank team in
collobration with AU-IBAR and many other institutions that contributed in one
form or another towards the organisation of the workshop says Dr. Mohamed
Seisay, Senior Fisheries Officer AU-IBAR.
Dr. Seisay was reading a statement on
behalf of the AU-IBAR Director at the official opening ceremony of the 29th
February-4th March, 2016 African Journalists for Sustainable
Fisheries Workshop held in Elmina, Ghana which gathered more than 140
journalists- newspapers, TV, radios and online from 40 African countries.
Giving a brief overview of the African
union institute, the co-convener of the workshop said the inter African Bureau
for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR) is a speacilized technical office of the
Department of Rural Economy and Agriculture (DREA) of the African Union
Commission and has been in existence since 1951 with main focus on animal
production and health issues, livestock, fisheries and wildlife as resources
for both human wellbeing and economic development in the Member States of the
African Union.
His words: “This workshop is timely and
has come at a time when serious concerns are nutured on the marginalization of
the sector as compared to other agricultural sector including crops and
livestock.
“ The fisheries sector currently
provides employment for over 12 million citizens, a source for relatively cheap
animal protein with a huge potential to contribute to economic growth of AU
member states. These current benefits can be secured and increased massively
with the imlpementation of the best practices and for good governance of the sector. Some of
the enduring challenges in the sector include rampant Illegal, Unreported and
Unregulated (IUU) fishing, poor coordination, inadequate governance instruments
(policies and legislations), weak investment etc.”
Recalling, Dr. Seisay stated that the
conference of African ministers for fisheries and Aquaculture recognized these
challenges and charged the African Union to formulate a pan fisheries and
aquaculture African policy framework to ensure coherent in the management of
the sector for increased contribution to food security, livelihoods and wealth.
According to him, the African Union was
also charged to put a mechanism for co-ordination in the sector. As you may be
aware, the pan African fisheries and aquaculture policy framework was endorsed
by the summit of African Heads of States and Governments in Malabo June 2014 as
a blueprint for African’s fisheries and aquaculture sector development.
Similarly the African Fisheries Reform Mechanism was adopted by the conference
of African Ministeries in october 2015, Addis
Ababa as a mechanism to deliver
in the fisheries and aquaculture sector .
The Policy Framework and the Reform Strategy,
Dr. Seisay explained, identify seven key policy objectives (and as well as
cross-cutting issues) as critical to Africa’s fisheries development.
One of the key policy pillars, he stated,
is on Awareness enhancing and human-capacity development, the objective of
which is to increase awareness of the potential and importance of the sector
and enhanced capacity of people and institutions in the African fisheries
sector to ensure sustainable development of capture fisheries and aquaculture,
based on current and emerging trends, challenges and needs.
He went further to say that the Policy
Framework acknowledged that fisheries has a major challenge due to capacity
issues and awareness hence coordination in the fisheries sector for expeditious
development of the sector in Africa thus includes popularization of the Pan
Afriacan fisheries policy framework and global fisheries management instruments
to facilitate their internalization and coherence in Africa fisheries
management and development endeavors towards increased contibution to food
security, livelihood and wealth.
The fourth estate (media)- “you will
therefore agree with me that there is a strong need to develop clear
communication strategies for engaging various actors including policy makers,
different gender groups, civil-society organisations and the private sector for
issues in sustainable fisheries and aquaculture development in Africa.”
“We at African Union, have come a long
way and we will not relent in our efforts in embracing new initiatives to re-position
African Fisheries and Aguaculture in providing source of livelihood to the
rural poor, employment for our youths and women, improved nutrition and wealth
for African nations.”
In this sense, this first meeting of the
journalists is taking on a transcendential role for the furture of fisheries
reform straegies in africa.
Resulting from this assembly, will
positively contribute to the consolidation of the aims of the fisheries reform
initiatives in africa and thereby to the philosophy underlying it.
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