4.1 The characteristics of the Bangkok Declaration
4.2 Regional organizations for aquaculture development
4.3 Global and regional instruments
4.4 Focus on life-long learning
Judging from the issues embedded in the Bangkok Declaration, the first two directly concern human resource development and the third the means to achieve it. The fourth is the social and economic goals; while the fifth, sixth and tenth suggest a multi-disciplinary approach. The three in between are more on aquaculture development, over generation, formalization and utilization of technology. The eleventh through fourteenth deal with high technology, probably outside the realm of poverty if the failure of the Green Revolution is accepted. The penultimate two concern food distribution and trade, which can be regarded as downstream aquaculture activities. The last one is of course the interest of most participants to and sponsors of the conference, and it is indeed an important issue to strike home.
To implement the declaration is obviously not exclusive to fishery authorities, whether at the regional, national or sub-national level. Management of common resources appears to be buried in rural development. Studying the declaration, one may get a feeling that the situation we will face in the future will be more or less what it is today. Naturally, such feeling does not conform with the projections of many world organizations over population, land and water management, pollution, environment or even climatic change.
As one of the regional instruments, the Bangkok declaration provides a useful set of guidelines for future development - in aquaculture as in other food-producing activities. The declaration can serve as a useful reference for regional organizations, national authorities and technical groups in their exchanges of information and knowledge. Finally, it should be viewed as something useful for joint undertakings, and as a new and broader perception about aquaculture.
The existing organizations, particularly those active in aquaculture development, such as ICLARM, NACA, SEAFDEC and MRC have been making efforts in line with the objectives of the Bangkok declaration. Although their mandates have been conceived at different times and in different places, these organizations can complement each other in the implementation of the declaration.
In the past decade, ICLARM placed its focus on research into the integration of aquaculture and agriculture (IAA) systems in Asia and Africa. The main purpose was to benefit small farmers the way they manage their meagre resources through the involvement of farmer-researcher teams and to underscore the importance of water as the life-essential commodity. ICLARM spent nine years developing the RESTORE software, which has now been released, to help determine IAA sustainability indicators. Since the year 2000, ICLARM has undertaken a review of inland aquatic resource systems to define research agendas for aquaculture and fishery development in inland aquatic resource systems, e.g. reservoirs, small lakes, floodplains and wastewaters. Earlier, ICLARM invested in integrated resource management to improve land and water resource management through IAA. ICLARM has developed participatory research procedures for farmers to use the IAA approach. Under IAA, farmers will develop skills to manage the finite natural resources. RESTORE has been distributed to other agencies for testing, and ICLARM has been employing the software in its projects.
ICLARM has also focused on sustainability. Over many years, ICLARM has developed and tested a set of sustainability indicators for evaluating IAA performance on small farms. ICLARM has formulated a range of simulation models of IAA systems at different levels of integration; and these models have been disseminated through various means, including training.
Aiming to reach the poor, ICLARM also concentrates its efforts on low-external input technology. A project in Bangladesh, which ended in the year 2000 after eight years of implementation, reviewed its experience of IAA in collaboration with national aquatic research agencies to test several low-input models. ICLARM has had experiences in working with NGOs testing IAA and monitoring the results. In a variety of socio-cultural contexts, such as in Bangladesh, in the Lao PDR and in Africa, ICLARM worked to measure the adoption and dissemination of technology and its impact on small land-holders. Its aim was to advise policymakers on how to maximize the impact of development efforts.
ICLARM has ventured into locations on earth where water was precious and has taught people through aquaculture and by learning-from-doing, how to make the best use of scarce resources for sustainable livelihood. ICLARM sought to work outside the fishery sector, inter alia, with forestry and agriculture, and local administration. ICLARM has much experience in fish-rice systems, having studied alternative resource management strategies in flood-prone ecosystems to develop, through a participatory approach, options for viable income generation which have been found to work well. Overall, ICLARM has been working in the field, under a wide range of socio-economic, geo-climatic and physical conditions, collaborating with other concerned sectors such as forestry, agriculture and rural development, using aquaculture as an option to work hand-in-hand with the poor in order to improve their livelihood by optimizing scarce natural resources.
The Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia-Pacific (NACA) has been serving Asia and the Pacific with its effective chain of aquaculture centres for research and exchange of information, which make it possible for its member countries to share common benefits. NACA deals with all the technical aspects of aquaculture. The organization has devoted much effort to shrimp and grouper aquaculture, resulting in its fast development from a haphazard venture to a sustainable and profitable primary business. NACA has worked with various agencies, national universities, donors and development banks. Particularly, it has developed close working relations with most national fishery authorities in the region.
Another area NACA has taken a keen interest in is the Regional Technical Cooperation Programme in Assistance for the Safe Trans-boundary Movement of Live Aquatic Animals in Asia. This programme involves 21 governments and multi-agency collaboration implementing measures guided by the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fishery. The project offers to provide a unified platform on the development of technical guidelines for quarantine, certification and reporting for all concerned agencies.
NACA has been involved in the collection, analysis, organization, processing and rapid delivery of farm-level data and information from 16 countries to guide actions at different operational levels. Quick access to a huge volume of aquaculture data would support any review and analysis of various types of aquaculture ventures to provide solid background information when planning a development or commercial undertaking. As an agency collaborating with FAO in setting up the conference leading to the Bangkok declaration, NACA has been active in assisting governments in formulating policy, legislation and management plans for sustainable aquaculture development. Through a strong information programme, NACA has been offering different forums in which interested individuals or agencies can participate and draw benefit from.
The Mekong River Commission (MRC) agreed formally in 1995 to cooperate in all fields of sustainable development, use, management and conservation of the water and related resources of the Mekong River basin. Its core programmes are in navigation, flood control, fishery, agriculture, hydropower and environmental protection. Its national Mekong committees act as focal points for cooperation and for liaison with the secretariat.
From May 2000, MRC signed an agreement with the Danish international aid agency DANIDA that made financial support available to a five-year programme of management and preservation of fishery resources in the Mekong River Basin. As one of seven components funded by DANIDA, MRC is supporting a project on aquaculture of indigenous fishes for a period of five years from July 2000. MRC also supports the strengthening of fishery information systems under a 36-month project as of July 2001, aiming to train fishery statisticians in standard methodology and classification, including setting up a system for dissemination of the information to different clients. From January 2002, MRC aims to promote, over the next four years, aquaculture in mountainous areas through a watershed-based approach and to conserve local capture fisheries in remote locations. Under the Water Utilization Programme, MRC will also assist member countries to promote and improve joint water management of the Mekong River basin.
Signed on 6 March 2000 was a partnership cooperation between the Asian Development Bank and MRC which involves, inter alia, water resources planning and management, environment, navigation and river works, energy, human resources development, agriculture, fishery, forestry and watershed management, poverty reduction and tourism. MRC will give ADB access to data and other information relevant to the bank’s development activities. In return, ADB will provide MRC with information and documents in the fields related to the activities in the Greater Mekong River basin and studies in the MRC member countries.
A US$4.5 million programme of Management of the Reservoir Fisheries in the Mekong Basin, Phase II, which began in March 2000, aims at sustaining per capita fish consumption and to increase fish production by about 20 000 tonnes a year. The programme will develop, test and introduce models for reservoir fishery co-management, and develop co-management strategic guidelines to be applied in the four member countries. The co-management will build the capacity of the various stakeholders in the management of reservoirs at national, provincial and local levels. The three-year Phase I, also financed by Denmark, includes activities in the Lao PDR (Nam Ngum Reservoir), Thailand (Sirindhorn Reservoir) and Vietnam (Central Highlands).
The Aquaculture Department of SEAFDEC has been active since 1973 in the promotion of aquaculture, particularly among its member countries. The department specializes in training that imparts different aspects of aquaculture technology. It has emphasized research which delves into those technical aspects of aquaculture that will also support its training on innovation in aquaculture. During the past decade, the department has been active in a resource co-management programme in a number of locations in the Philippines, and during the past few years has expanded to other SEAFDEC member countries.
In summary, it can be stated that the existing regional organizations involved in fishery development in Southeast Asia (ICLARM, NACA, MRC and SEAFDEC) have a productive blend in their programmes of action, which not only support the efforts of their member countries but also complement each other.
As stated by the Bangkok Declaration, states, the private sector and other concerned organizations are encouraged to implement the Strategy for Development of Aquaculture Beyond 2000. In the short span of time since the Kyoto Conference, aquaculture has become considerably more diverse and a wider range of stakeholders are involved in it. The declaration views greater diversity in aquaculture as a greater opportunity for productive co-operation.
The great diversity and complexity of aquaculture offers plenty of opportunities for international cooperation. Cooperating countries may derive mutual benefit from joint research programmes, e.g. in field-testing scientific findings in widely different environments. Given the large number of subjects to be researched, allocation of research responsibilities at the planning stage should enable developing countries to avoid duplicating efforts and make effective use of limited resources. The sharing of technical experience, of educational material and of information is another area of mutual benefit for cooperating countries. In the area of fish health, international cooperation would generate mutual benefit when virulent fish diseases could be contained.
The existing regional and international organizations have been active in the promotion of aquaculture. As specialized agencies, they have plenty to offer in terms of technical assistance. Their frequent and familiar contacts with their counterparts at national and sub-national levels have fostered a rich exchange of technical expertise, and a good number of technical innovations have transpired. The role that these regional and international organizations play has indeed helped shorten development processes in aquaculture, and the emergence of aquaculture as the fastest food-production sector should be credited to their efforts.
As aquaculture is leaping forward into unfamiliar ventures, cooperation among the expanding groups of stakeholders would be necessary. Aquaculture should not be viewed strictly from its technical perspective, since its future prosperity and sustainability depend on many other aspects, such as political or socio-economic influences. Within the technical realm, aquaculture must be broadened to embrace biological science as well as other natural sciences, engineering, computer science and physics.
While technical inputs are essential to all socio-economic development efforts, political commitments are also indispensable. Few countries in the world, particularly developing countries, have been able to maintain their national policies over a long period even after the end of a leader’s tenure of office. Of the five types of political systems usually acknowledged (collapsed states, personal rule, minimal institutionalized states, institutionalized non-competitive states, and institutionalized competitive states), the last type has had the greatest benefit for the poor. National leadership in most of the developing world is taken under either long-lasting dictatorial rule or short-lived leadership which two or more rival groups whose national policies are usually very different take turns to hold. Politics and development, particularly the efforts to narrow the income or social gap in favour of the poor, has been the subject of great interest in this United Nations Decade of Poverty Eradication. In a study on politics and poverty, Moore and Putzel (1999) provided from their analysis five strategic guidelines for development:
a) Democracy has differential outcomes for the poor.The main concerns have been expressed in countless public gatherings. The statement given by the chairman of Transparency International, Peter Eigen, in a conference on Integrity Improvement Initiatives in Developing Countries which was held in April 1998 in Berlin, sums up the situation: “Corruption is present in almost every country, but has most devastating effects in developing economies because it hinders any advance in economic growth and in democracy.”
b) States create and shape the political opportunities of the poor.
c) There is no reason to expect that decentralization will be favourable to the poor.
d) There is a wide range of opportunities for political alliances in favour of the poor.
e) Many of the policies needed to improve governance will benefit the poor.
The global instruments evolved over time have brought nations together, notably under the United Nations umbrella, to assist one another for the ultimate benefit of mankind. Eminent experts who contributed to these global instruments partook of their experience, on which they seriously debated to distil the best and justifiably fairest quality rules. The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development and its Agenda 21, the Cancun Declaration, and the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fishery are just a few pertinent instruments for fishery and aquaculture development.
Efforts have been made to promote the adoption of these global instruments by national authorities, which are expected to translate them, within the local context and situation, into action. Agencies such as SEAFDEC have made efforts to regionalize the FAO code of conduct through seminars and workshops. National administrative fragmentation has made it difficult, in most cases, to realize the result in a relatively short time. After a long while, efforts become dull and people often face them with indifference.
Sectoral development through technical assistance has been pursued in developing countries, largely as short-term interventions. Upon the transition to a new technological level, the communities tend to abandon the old to accept the new. The capability of people in such communities is, in fact, the instrument of change, not technology per se. For this reason, lasting developmental impact rests upon the human resource, which can be developed through life-long education. Unfortunately, this area within the FAO mandate is one which has no active programme, according to Seilert (2001).
Poverty is a debilitating experience unnecessary to humankind. It is fostered by social distortion and inequity. It results from a lack of opportunities due to an unkind social environment and the inability of individuals to imbibe information and knowledge. To address this problem, many development themes have promoted a “pro-poor” concept, which “puts the people at the centre”.
The cerebral cortex, the outer layer of the brain, is identified as the seat of learning. The child begins to learn the moment it perceives the world. Learning is the acquisition and storage of information in a way that allows its use to modify future behaviour. Although the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget believed that intellectual development moves through set stages at each of which the child is capable to learn different things, his views have been challenged by British psychologists Barbara Tizard and Martin Hughes, who believe that children may use more complex ideas in conversation with their mothers than they reveal to teachers or researchers (Richmond, 1989). Mothers are teachers by nature, merely in the way they nurture their children, and they are directly involved in the process of learning. For this reason, involving women in development is thought to be a better way of getting more individuals through the learning process, and most pedagogic circles are fully convinced that “teaching a man, an individual learns; teaching a woman, learning is for the entire family”.
The involvement of foreign experts, no matter how experienced they are in their fields of expertise, is costly due to high remuneration and the disbursements involved in their relocation. Since learning takes place from early childhood, parents and the communities are in fact the most suitable persons to teach. Laboratories or well-equipped classrooms should facilitate faster and better learning, provided different scenarios can be manipulated to reveal clearly the essence of the lessons the teacher intends to impart. Most poor communities, particularly in developing countries, cannot afford to have such an arrangement, not only due to the cost involved but also because of the lack of ideas. A number of rural children have grown up with nature, advanced through the formal education system and finally become learned persons. Nature and the environment are, in fact, the most convincing laboratories or classrooms for continuous learning, should every opportunity that arises be captured for a lesson. Many development agencies, such as ICLARM, have begun to exploit the learning opportunities that always exist in the lives of rural people; and through “participatory learning”, outsiders and villagers can together learn the flow of lessons that are useful and pertinent to living.
Schools, colleges and universities in many developing countries produce and serve elites that have the means to send their children to expensive courses where they receive the best tuition. Most farmers, villagers and the poor have no such means. Society thus drifts towards more intellectual inequity, and consequently wider social and economic gaps. The nation gradually falls apart; and if an unbecoming political situation develops, social and economic chaos is almost at the door. No one in such countries is happy, for the closest environment (neighbours, friends, fellow human beings) is already polluted. Universities and institutions of higher learning are generally well equipped to teach and train for development. The International Development and Research Centre-assisted programme of the Vietnam Farming System Network, should be observed closely. Most countries in Southeast Asia should be more or less ready to mount such a programme. Democratization has helped streamline the administration and educational systems, making them more conducive to mutual learning.
Higher education and research are an inseparable pair, particularly in the field, where innovativeness makes a great economic difference. Involving university postgraduate students in research as a degree requirement has been attempted before. Most agricultural universities have elaborate networks of experimental stations where the students can work on the farm or nearby. FAO was involved in such a programme in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia. However, the objectives of the programme were limited to higher learning, leaving the farmers out of the learning process. The Land Grant programme continues in the United States but it is not limited to agriculture. As much benefit could be gained by the parties involved, FAO should, were we to decide to help along, make sure that the primary objective was to involve the farmers and the poor in life-long learning. The activity is a human resource development, and it is humans who can ensure the sustainability of technology already transferred or yet to be evolved.
