5. DONOR AGENCIES' POLICIES AND SUPPORT TO THE AQUACULTURE SECTOR

5.1. The SADC fisheries development programme

The inland fisheries sector has 18 projects which have been approved by the SADC Council of Ministers. Six of these have been fully funded, and one (the Regional Fisheries Training Programme) has received “seed” money for the pre-implementation phase. Two of the projects which have received funding are directly for aquaculture development. One of these is ALCOM (Phase II), the other is Integrated Fish-cum-Duck Farming in Lesotho (Phases I and II have been completed). The Regional Fisheries Training Programme has nine sub-projects, three of which relate directly to aquaculture.

5.2. Donor support to aquaculture development

Table 2 shows 18 donor countries and the sectors they support, based on UNDP/RMU's 1990 Donor Profiles. (RMU stands for Resource Mobilization Unit). The donors focused on rural development/nutrition, agriculture and food security for support through Governments. Support through NGOs is related mainly to rural development and nutrition. As discussed above, Governments in the region increasingly recognize the potential role of aquaculture in rural development. That this is not reflected in actual support may depend partly on the national policies and plans which are not explicit and give sufficient priority to aquaculture development. One additional reason can be the low perceived success rate for aquaculture and fisheries development projects.

In Table 3 (also based on UNDP/RMU 1990 Donor Profiles), donor support to the SADC countries is summarized (support to all sectors). The table illustrates that all, except one, of the SADC countries receive support from at least six donors (Note that Namibia was not a member of SADC when the table was produced).

Information gathered, although not complete, by the Working Group indicates that during the last 20 years, no less than 59 aquaculture projects (or projects covering a wider field, but with aquaculture components) were implemented in the SADC region, at a cost of more than US$ 15 million. These figures do not include nine regional or inter-regional projects, which have covered the whole or part of the SADC region. Only five of the projects dealt with coastal aquaculture, two in Mozambique (mussels and shrimp) and three in Tanzania (seaweed and fish culture).

Angola and Botswana are the only countries which had no aquaculture projects during the period under review. Namibia is a unique case since its only listed project was completely funded by the Government. According to the incomplete information available on funding, the highest investment was made in Zambia, more than US$ 6,2 million, followed by Mozambique, above US$ 3,1 million, and Malawi, US$ 2,2 million. These three countries received more than 75% of the total external assistance to aquaculture. Donor support to the sector increased during the 1980s and peaked during the latter half of the decade. External support has since then fallen.

There are now eight ongoing national projects in three countries--four in Malawi, one in Mozambique, and three in Zambia. Except the project in Mozambique, all of them deal with inland aquaculture.

UNDP has been the largest donor (more than US$ 3,7 million) and has also supported the largest number of countries (7). Other donors have concentrated their support to one country. The Nordic countries joined in funding one project in Mozambique, as part of a large agriculture programme. The EEC and GTZ are supporting projects in Malawi. USAID, NORAD, and the Netherlands have supported projects in Zambia.

The review has documented 11 NGOs involved in aquaculture projects in five countries (Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and Zambia). Only two NGOs assisted more than one country-OXFAM (with support to Lesotho, Malawi, and Tanzania) and CUSO (with support to Mozambique and Tanzania).

It was noted that

• The number of projects had decreased since the 1980s.
• Few project evaluation reports were available.
• Socio-economic and economic expertise had been increasingly employed in projects since the mid-1980s.
• Early aquaculture projects were first implemented as part of fisheries projects. They had then been executed as autonomous projects. The present trend is integration with agriculture and rural development programmes and projects.
• The changes in orientation and execution were in line with the recommendations of the Thematic Evaluation (report in 1987).

Table 2. Review of Donor Support to Fisheries and Aquaculture*
Preliminary Results of Desk Study

* UNDP/RMU 1990 - “DONOR PROFILES”

Table 3.

Indicative Official Development Assistance (ODA) by Donor Countries to SADC*
(1988 and 1989)

* UNDP/RMU 1990 - DONOR PROFILES

** Namibia Independent State in 1990

5.3. Experiences from past and ongoing projects and programmes

Because few evaluation reports were available and the Working Group's resources were limited, no in-depth analysis was made of the impact of projects in the region. However, the Group made some observations on the basis of discussions within the group and the experiences of members.

It is obvious that aquaculture projects have not met with the expected success. Many of the Government fish farms established with external assistance during the 1960s and 1970s and later rehabilitated are in disrepair and functioning far below capacity. There are many reasons for this. The site selection was sometimes bad. Result: stations with chronic water shortages. At times site selection seems to have been influenced by political concerns rather than suitability for aquaculture development. Stations have also been allocated tasks they were not designed for, such as production of table size fish for sale. The capacity of the Governments to maintain and continue operation of the farms after external support ceased has been limited, not least during the difficult economic conditions of recent years in the SADC region.

The projects' impact on private sector (small-scale and large-scale) production has also been below expectations. This may be because the project design did not take into account the familiarity of the population in the area with fish, economic conditions in the project areas, demand for fish, marketing factors, and the social structure of the communities targeted for support. Earlier projects were highly oriented towards technology transfer, without adapting to local conditions. For example, promotion of technologies that require inputs (labour, feed and fertilizers) beyond the means of the beneficiaries have little chance of success. Sustainable support systems (extension, credit) were not established by the projects.

Trends during the last 10 years demonstrate a recognition of deficiencies in project design and implementation. As stated above, expertise in economics and sociology is now greater than before, allowing a broader approach to development of aquaculture. Integration with larger rural or agriculture programmes facilitates the broader approach.

After the technology-oriented era with projects for large-scale commercial production of fish, which had purely economic objectives, projects' aims have changed. Subsistence-based production in small units rates high priority, so do nutrition objectives and higher income as ingredients of an improved standard of living. This approach has met with some success as discussed in this report. However, it has been difficult to establish links between subsistence fish farming and nutritional well-being, and the amounts produced have not significantly increased producers' income, nor have they contributed significantly to the availability of fish at the national levels. Projects initiated during this period have had problems in attaining all of their aims, which sometimes have been conflicting. The results also suggest that fish farming with an acceptable degree of productivity cannot be targeted to produce cheap protein. Inputs have opportunity costs, and to make fish farming a viable sector, revenues need to match inputs.

The recent study “Aquaculture Development and Research in Sub-Saharan Africa: Synthesis of national reviews and indicative plan of action for research” (Coche, Haight and Vince 1994) carried out for SIFR (Study on International Fisheries Research) reviewed the performance of 31 aquaculture projects terminated in 1992 or earlier. The study was presented to the Working Party on Aquaculture of the Committee on Inland Fisheries of Africa, at Harare in September 1993. The projects' rating was subjective, based on their sustainability after external support had ceased. Fourteen (nearly half) of the projects were rated “bad to limited sustainability”, eight “average” and nine “good”.

The study concludes that the main reason for failures was that the government authorities found it financially impossible to continue the activities. Other reasons:

• lack of coordination among different ministries
• state farm management deficient
• technology not adapted to local conditions
• defection of trained staff, mainly for financial reasons
• technical assistance too short and/or too diluted.

Projects related to “successes” had been taken over by the private or the public sector.