As the cliché’ laments, “…..Teach a man how to fish and he will eat for a life-time”. The case has been fairly opposing in the African context, has it not? With so many starving people, access to one of the world’s largest fisheries in inaccessible to the ordinary man, woman and child in Africa.

In West Africa up to a quarter of employment is linked to the fisheries sector.  West Africa’s fisheries are under supply stress though. The freshwater segments of the market are currently harmed by changes in the landscape, the management thereof, deforestation, mining, and industrial farming. Then there are the supply shocks being felt right around the continents coast in her waters.

Fishing, around the African coast in general is not only under pressure but also fairly unregulated. This lack of consistency, lack of cost efficient supply chains in Africa and infrastructure throughout the continent leave the bulk of the 9.9 million tonnes to be exported to the UK, Africa’s biggest fishery customer.

It is estimated that unregulated or unreported fishing costs the continent $1.3 billion annually. If Africa can improve the management of their fisheries, the industry can achieve resource rent (the difference between cost revenue derived from the resource and the cost of fishing) of 40 – 70 percent. Using a discount rate of 9 percent where the implicit value, the entire fisheries is approximately $22 billion. Africa can scale this to $3.81 billion per annum if the marine industry is well managed and regulate to international standards. This however, on a continent that does not have the expertise in every region and possibly on inland regions as well, over the short-term this may not be plausible.

We have a consistent problem of too many fishing vessels, and too little data about the current stock levels per region and the uptake from the sea to market ratio that occurs annually.

Yesterday a new pan-African project was launched to strengthen the continents great potential for marine trading.  Whilst producing 9.9 million tonnes of fish for trade, Africa accounts for just 4.9 percent of global fishery trade. This particular sector in Africa employs 12.3 million people across the continent.

Strangling trade is the lack of;

• Adequate market uptake
• Enough markets
• Trade infrastructure
• Reasonable market prices for the African market
• Market accessibility
• Poor trade regulations
• Extremely poor resource monitoring and recovery regulations and policing
• In essence, available market data

The “Fish Trade for a Better Future” which is a project fund through the European Commission and implemented by WorldFish, the NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa’s Development)and the African Union Inter-African Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR) are set to ensure there are no chinks in the supply-chain  with a keen focus on sustainability, this to allow intra-regional trade and market uptake for the African consumer. This will increase the trade revenue and food security for the Sub-Saharan regions.

Says Stephen J Hall, Director General for WorldFish: “Africa has the potential to develop its fisheries and aquaculture to play a much greater role in promoting food security, providing livelihoods and supporting economic growth. Per capital consumption has fallen, despite Africa’s great abundance of aquatic resources. FishTrade will create will create the foundation for a more solid, productive and sustainable build-up of this great, continent-wide, resource.”

Hamady Diop, Programme Manager Fisheries and Aquaculture, NEPAD: “Recent years have seen increased growth in aquaculture. FishTrade will provide the opportunity to learn from past successes and failures and governments will be given the right information to be able to create incentives and infrastructure that investors need to meet local demand and penetrate higher value-added export markets.”

Steve Wathome, Programme Manager, Agriculture and Rural Development Delegation of the European Commission to Kenya, European Commission: “The EU is convinced that the Fish Trade programme will significantly contribute towards the fisheries sector in Africa. Trade has been identified as one of the major challenges affecting growth of the fish sector in Africa, with challenges being notable with regard to intra-Africa trade and accessing global markets.”

Prof. Ahmed El Sawalhy Director AU-IBAR: “Trade plays a major role in the fishery industry as a creator of employment, food supplier, income generator, and contributor to economic growth and development in several African countries. Domestic and intra-regional trade of fish (both marine and inland waters) is important with great potential for enhancing regional integration and food and nutrition security. However many AU member states still face several constraints in improving their fish trade and marketing sector. This project will enable alignment of policies at the continental level and open-up fish trade that we believe will have an effect on the alleviation of poverty in some our poorest regions.”

 Fact Bunker

Nutrients: Fish contains important micronutrients and omega-3 fatty acids. These are particularly important for kids, especially in Africa. They also play a critical role for Autistic kids.

Protein in Africa:  it is suggested that fish provides 22 percent of protein in Sub-Saharan Africa despite 9.9 million tonnes of annual despite it only trading at 4.9 percent of global fish consumption.

Trade: In 2011 Africa became the net importer of fish – sad considering that has one of the world’s largest marine and inland resources. Of the 9.9 million tonnes of fish produced in 2010, on third came from inland fisheries. This also proves that Africa has a solid capacity to create jobs from artificial spawning fisheries. This is a huge market in China. In this very regard, 1.49 million tonnes came from the aquaculture sectors in Africa.

• In 2011 the value of the pan-African fish trade amounted to US$24 billion – the equivalent of 1.25 percent of all African trade.
• Employing 12.3 million people, this is about 2 percent of Africa’s total employment between the ages of 15 and 64 years old – woman account for 27 percent.
• Unregulated and illegal fish trade costs the continent an estimated US$1 billion annually.

When looking at the 2014 private equity sectors that attracted investment and raised capital, again here is a sector that can generate increased revenues and immediate employment and return on capital, are omitted as critical and high ROI investments on the continent. The very same applies to the agriculture sector