In the context of west central Gulf of Guinea, the supply of fish from natural waters declines while demand for fish from growing population increases year by year. In order to increase the local production of fish in the region and in line with FCWC mandate to ensure the sustainable development of fisheries resources. Indeed, at the six conference of Ministers on December 2012, held in Togo, the conference took a strong commitment to amend FCWC mandate to address aquaculture development in the region.
As part of the implementation of this recommendation, many strategies are under suggested including establishment of a regional aquaculture working group to support FCWC in its work, brainstorm and proffer solution to the challenges facing aquaculture and increase the fish production in the region to the extent of ensuring self-sufficiency in food fish supply.
In fact, the regional seminar on aquaculture development jointly organized by FCWC and JICA from 03 to 05 march 2020 demonstrated that aquaculture could be one of a few realistic options remained to increase the fish production as many countries have given a higher priority on aquaculture development in their fisheries sector development policy frameworks. The regional seminar agreed to set up a dialogue mechanism to strengthen the coordination of aquaculture development actions at the level of all the Member States including maintain private and public collaboration; standards and harmonize the promotion of investment in aquaculture and also provide technical advice on how to address matters related to quality and safety of products, social responsibility and propose and implement activities, an analytical framework is required to learn from the past experiences as there has been limited multiplier effect of successful projects to establish a regional aquaculture working group that would accelerate the contributions of aquaculture to the member states.
The responsibilities of the working group shall include:
- To synergies with Member state and partners to improve Aquaculture production in the region.
- To coordinate the planning and programming of improved aquaculture activities to member states.
- To offer advice to member countries of FCWC on aquaculture development in a way to monitor and report on the status, trend and key issues in aquaculture in the sub region.
- To collect, analyze and disseminate new and improved aquaculture technologies to FCWC members.
- Ensure the promotion of technical cooperation and capacity building, at the regional and sub-regional level.
To create a regional coordinated and networking initiative to support the development actions of member states on aquaculture relate issues including private and public partnership development.