Address delivered by Mr. F. Ossella, Deputy Regional Representative, UNDP Thailand, at the Second Provisional Governing Council Meeting, 12 January 1988, FAO Regional Office, Bangkok.
Your Excellency the Minister of Agriculture and Cooperative General Harn; Mr. Puri, Assistant Director General and Regional Representative of the FAO; Distinguished Participants and Guests:
On behalf of Mr. Kim, the Regional Representative, I wish to express UNDP's appreciation for being invited to address this meeting.
As you are aware, UNDP, in association with FAO, has been promoting agricultural development since 1975. We are very pleased to note that this collaboration culminated last Friday with the establishment of NACA as an inter-governmental organization. UNDP's continuing support for NACA has been and is motivated by the awareness that fish farming and fish culture have a great potential for improving the livelihood of the rural and coastal people. The point is particularly important in view of the fact that sea fish resources and natural fresh water fish resources have been diminishing due to over-exploitation and water pollution. From a technical point of view, fisheries have gone a long way in the last decade. Fish culture has now become a very sophisticated science and many important successes have been achieved in this period. It is now possible to breed species which in the past could only be harvested in their natural habitat.
UNDP supports aquaculture and fish farming because they offer a way to half over-exploitation of natural fish resources and at the same time offer new employment and income opportunities for the rural and the coastal people. UNDP supports aquaculture also because it offers an opportunity to provide additional sources of food and protein to rural populations in landlocked countries and, in general, to populations living away from the coast-line areas and lakes.
In the last decade, we have witnessed a very rapid development of knowledge and research in this part of the world which has thus become the leader in aquaculture and fish farming. The experiences gained by the various countries in the region are somewhat different from one another due to different national interests and development perceptions. Nevertheless, they complement one another. The UNDP therefore welcomes with great enthusiasm the establishment of NACA as an inter-governmental organization. It will allow the establishment of permanent formal links among the various research institutions of the member countries thus accelerating the exchange of knowledge and the pace of development.
I wish to conclude by saying that we are pleased to have been associated in the development of NACA since the beginning. The project, in our view, has been very successful and we look forward to its continued development and an even greater collaboration among member countries. The current philosophy for the UNDP regional programme is to foster cooperation and exchanges among participating countries. Closer links at all levels foster understanding and peace. We hope therefore that NACA will be an additional important step in this direction. We thank all the persons who have participated in it and have contributed to make it a success.
