NEPAD and African Union Fisheries Summit: Livelihoods should come first urge small-scale fishers and NGOs
Banjul, Gambia, 22 September 2010. Artisanal and small scale fishers and associated civil society representatives from seventeen African countries met in Banjul, Gambia on 21 September, 2010, in advance of the first NEPAD Conference of African Ministers on Fisheries and Aquaculture (CAMFA) to be held on 23 September 2010. The meeting was organized by the Coalition for Fair Fisheries Arrangements, the African Confederation of Artisanal Fishery Professional Organizations and the Commonwealth Foundation, under the banner of "Our Fish, Our Future".
Following the meeting, participants issued the Banjul Civil Society Declaration on Sustainable Livelihoods in African Fisheries (http://www.camfa-cso.org). The declaration highlights key issues in African fisheries and provides recommendations on how the 2005 NEPAD Action Plan for Development of Fisheries and Aquaculture should be taken forward.
The declaration warns that a purely economic approach represents a threat to the sustainable development of fisheries resources and livelihoods of poor marginalized artisanal and small scale fishing communities. It emphasizes the importance and value of small-scale and artisanal fisheries in the African context towards providing food security for 200 million Africans and jobs for more than 10 million people engaged in fish production, processing and trade. It further highlights the negative impacts of climate change, industrial fishing and illegal unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU), including dwindling catches, displacement of communities and the destruction of fishing grounds. In turn this affects the social stability of entire regions, the Declaration states.
The significance of IUU fishing in African waters was echoed by Tim Bostock, Fisheries advisor to United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID) in the opening session of the CAMFA on Monday 20th September, who noted that illegal fishing alone accounts for removing fish valued at some $1billion from the waters of Sub-Saharan Africa every year.
The CAMFA is a follow-up to the 2005 Abuja "Fish for All" summit, and African fisheries ministers are expected to assess and validate a fisheries plan of action for the region.
The meeting of small scale and artisanal fishers and civil society organizations is also part of an ongoing process, which since 2006 has included a growing network of West African journalists for responsible fisheries (REJOPRAO). From 15-23 September, the REJOPRAO organized training workshop for journalists, with the objective of focusing on responsible fisheries and related topics and issues in West Africa. Following the training, the journalists from sub region will carry out the media coverage, as observers, of CAMFA.
Since 2005, organizations representing the professionals (fishers, traders, processors and fishmongers) from the artisanal fishing sector have worked to establish a regional body to represent their interests. Earlier this year, this initiative led to the founding of CAOPA - the African Confederation of Professional Artisanal Fishery Sector Organizations.
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