EAC blue economy drive to benefit from €28 million fish project

Arusha. The blue economy drive in East Africa will benefit from the 28 million Euro project through increased fish output.

Ecofish, the five-year project being implemented in four economic blocs in Africa since 2019, comes to an end later this year.

"We need fish to feed our population. The fisheries sector will also boost our blue economy," said Mr Edward Rukunya, a fisheries expert.

He said this here on Thursday when addressing a steering committee meeting of the programme being implemented in various countries.

Mr Rukunya, the director of fisheries with the Lake Victoria Fisheries Organisation (LVFO), said that through the project, fishermen will be able to increase catches.

"We have also been able to sensitise our communities in fish breeding areas to the dangers of illegal fishing," he told the meeting at an Arusha hotel.

Within the East African Community (EAC) bloc, the project is being implemented around lakes Victoria and Tanganyika.

The EAC region was allocated some four million euros (Euro 2 million each) for the two lakes' basins out of 28 million euros for the continent-wide project.

According to Mr Rukunya, the Lake Victoria basin was notorious for illegal fishing in all three riparian states.

On the Tanzanian side of the shared water body, hotspots for illegal fishing are mostly found around Mwanza, Geita and Mara.

In Uganda, at least 12 zones that are notorious for illegal fishing have been identified, as have some around Kisumu in Kenya.

LVFO is a specialised institution of the EAC based in Jinja, Uganda and is mandated to coordinate the management and development of fisheries and aquaculture resources in the EAC region.

The organisation had organised a series of meetings on the Ecofish project, supported by the European Union (EU), in collaboration with the Mauritius-based Indian Ocean Commission (IOC).

Ms Alice N'Diaye, the director of the IOC secretariat, said the blue economy has been streamlined into the project due to the need to boost the fisheries sector.

Besides the EAC, the project has been under implementation in the Southern Africa Development Community (Sadc), Comesa and Intergovernmental Authority on Development (Igad) blocs.

There have been reports that the contribution of fisheries to the economies of the EAC partner states has been grossly undervalued.

A recent report by the East African Legislative Assembly (Eala) said the economic contribution of fisheries to national GDPs is only seen in raw harvests rather than in earnings.

Statistics, though, show that the contribution of the fisheries sector to the partner states' GDP has continued to increase.

Currently, the sector contributes 1.75 percent to the GDP of Tanzania and 3.6 percent and 0.6 percent for Uganda and Kenya, respectively.

The shared Lake Victoria alone is a major source of fish for domestic consumption and export, contributing $400 million annually.

Currently, however, only about 500,000 metric tonnes of fish are produced annually, yet the lake has the potential to yield fish valued at over $800 million annually.