CALL FOR COHERENT MANAGEMENT OF WEST AFRICA’S FISH RESOURCES
West Africa needs to develop a coherent regional policy to manage its dwindling fishery resources with a view to ensuring a sustainable balance of its strategic role in the economies of Member States, a senior official at the Republic of Benin Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, has said.
“Such a policy must effectively reconcile the various roles of the sector, a critical source of revenue, food security and a diminishing resource which had generated some tensions related to the issues of access and market, a reflection of the absence of dialogue,” said Mr. Idrissou Yacouba Toure, Director of Cabinet in the ministry.
Fishery accounts for between three and five percent of the GDP of five ECOWAS Member States of Benin, The Gambia, Ghana, Mali and Senegal with about five million people involved in the sector mainly in harvesting, processing and trading in fish and related products as well as ancillary activities such as building canoes and sale of fishing gear.
With about 50 per cent of West Africa’s estimated 300 million population consuming fish, the region is confronting a depleting fish stock and has to develop a mechanism for the sustainable management of this valued resource.
Speaking during the ongoing three-day meeting of the regional fisheries Committee which opened in Cotonou on Thursday, 27th February 2014 to agree a mechanism for the sustainable management of the region’s fishery resources, Mr. Toure urged ECOWAS, Member States and partners to agree on the elements of such a regional policy.
He said his country was working to revamp its agriculture, including the fishery sector and would use the opportunity to develop new approaches for harmonising the various approaches in the sector.
The ECOWAS Commissioner for Agriculture, Environment and Water Resources, Dr. Lapodini Marc Atouga said the Cotonou meeting would also establish sub-committees on trade, governance and aquaculture to improve the effectiveness of the sector.
In order to mitigate the negative consequences of climate change on natural resources including fisheries, the Commissioner said ECOWAS was working with its partners in this area under the Monitoring for the Environment and Security in Africa (MESA) scheme, which will be presented to the Committee during the ongoing meeting.
He said the meeting will also discuss the mechanisms for the effective use of ECOWAS text to facilitate intra-community trade in this sector, adding that the Commission is willing to leverage the experiences of Member States to improve the sector.
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