Weak and ineffective governance of fisheries combined with inadequate policies and poorly enforced legal frameworks and national strategies have led to widespread degradation and depletion of the natural fish resources. Poverty, a decline in food security and insufficient use of fisheries resources ultimately deprive countries of substantial economic revenues.

A technical workshop of the PAF/NEPAD support programme for the Regional Commission of Fisheries of Gulf of Guinea (COREF) to overcome challenges in the sector took place in Douala from September 24-25. Dialogue between countries through regional thematic meetings on current challenges facing fishery is important considering that no one of the central African countries is very advanced and all are in a position to seek various supports in order to work out or to update the instruments of fishery policy and their implementation.

The potential of available marine living resources as a whole in this area is estimated at 1,832,600 metric tonnes. Speaking during the opening ceremony, Dr. Sloans Chimatiro, Senior Fisheries Advisor at the NEPAD Planning and Coordinating Agency, pointed out that many fisheries institutions in Africa, including Departments or Ministries of Fisheries and indeed their partners, have not responded strategically to the opportunity availed by the CAADP process.

He warned that there is a risk that if this continued, fisheries will become irrelevant to African agricultural renewal. "This will not be good for those countries where over 30 per cent of animal protein comes from fish because they will not be able to realise the food security role of fish and indeed the 6 per cent annual growth in the agricultural sector because they will leave out one of the most important driver of the CAADP growth target. On the input side, these countries will also miss out on the potential investment which the fish sector could get from the allocation of 10 per cent of the national budget."