Background
Inland aquaculture in the SADC Region annually produces about 5700 t, the major producer being Zambia. Major freshwater species are tilapias and trout. Subsistence oriented fish farming is a secondary activity, relatively well integrated with small-scale rural agriculture. Low level management results in annual yields not exceeding 10kg/100sq.m. Such simple culture system may gradually become semi-intensive, using resources with higher opportunity costs. This happens more readily where a general trend towards diversification and intensification of agricultural production exists. A more intensive although still rather small sub-sector is present in Malawi, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Potential for development of freshwater fish farming is the greatest in Angola, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia.
Marine/brackishwater aquaculture is producing about 10 000 t, mostly in Tanzania and South Africa. Major species are seaweeds, oysters and mussels. There has been an increasing interest both from Governments and the private sector. Potential for development is especially good in Tanzania and Mozambique.
In the southern part of SADC Region, the main potential for increased fish production is related to the numerous artificial small water bodies (SWB) built mostly for irrigation and cattle watering. Most of them, stocked with fish in the past, still remain largely under utilized by the local communities as a potential source of protein. There is very little knowledge about SWB in general, except for the one now being assembled by ALCOM. Best potential for development exists in Zimbabwe. Recently, governments have shown an increased interest in utilising their numerous reservoirs. There is small-scale fishing on most of them and their role in food security and cash/income generation is increasingly recognised.
Institutional responsibility for aquaculture development lies in most cases within the ministry responsible for agriculture. Aquaculture is a young and small subsector and institutions are generally weak. There is practically no explicit policies and plans for its development. Legislation is still non-existent and training/research facilities are limited. Quality of extension services varies greatly, according to resources available. To increase impact, attempts are being made to integrate aquaculture extension into agriculture extension, with mixed results.
The social setting in the SADC Region is characterised by deficient nutrition (fish protein intakes far below ideal value) and food insecurity in most rural households for at least a few months every year.
Severe droughts have been experienced in recent years, more frequently during the last 12 years than before. They have disrupted some of the ALCOM activities, delaying output especially in Mozambique and Zambia.
The Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) is decentralized. Specific sub-sectors are co-ordinated by individual countries, such as Food Security by Zimbabwe and Inland Fisheries by Malawi. Eight sub-sectors related to food production and food security are co-ordinated from Harare by the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources (FANR) unit. The Inland Fisheries sub-sector (IFS) has six strategic programmes on the basis of which the IFS Technical Co-ordination Unit is organized. Three programmes, supported by Iceland, are functional: training, information and research/development under which falls aquaculture development. But IFSTCU operations do not include funding, formulating and implementing projects.
Apart from the whole ALCOM programme, there are now three on-going regional projects and 15 on-going national projects supporting aquaculture in the SADC Region. Most of them terminate in 1997.
Complementary programmes are the ICLARM Africa Aquaculture Project, FARMESA Programme, Remote Sensing Project, Food Security Database Project, UNDP Water Resources Coordination, Hydrobiological Cycle Observation System, and the European Commission food-security and water resource-management related projects.
The Aquaculture for Local Community Development (ALCOM) Programme was designed as an inter-regional programme aimed at testing and developing methods and techniques appropriate for rural small-scale fish farming and community - based fish resources management, to be applied on a wider scale by member governments. It covers the entire SADC Region since the late eighties. It is guided by a Steering Committee meeting once a year.
Training activities are an important part of ALCOM's Programme which is spread among four groups of activities:
Project Objectives and Design
The ALCOM project is justified by the fact that rural populations in the SADC Region are poor and malnourished. Animal proteins are particularly needed.
There are good preconditions to partly solve these problems by fish-farming and numerous small water bodies exist where fish production potential today exists even if it is still unknown.
The technology for small-scale fish-farming in earthen ponds is well known. During ALCOM's previous phases, extension methodologies have been developed and development work started on how to promote exploitation of small water bodies.
Phase III development objectiveis to increase cash income and/or the animal protein component in the diet of rural communities, through fish farming integrated with agricultural activities.
This objective is specified in the immediate objectivesfor the Core Programme (four pilot projects) and for the Small Water Bodies Project (five pilot projects). The former should develop methods for integrated small-scale fish farming and reinforce the development of national and local institutions to support this development. Besides, the whole ALCOM project should be administered. The Small Water Bodies Project should develop methods for the evaluation of SWB fisheries potential, use these methods to assess their actual resources, and provide feasible methods to local communities to manage their fish production.
These objectives are valid as demonstrated through the concept of "transfer of technology. They are most appropriate to meet the specified problems and to take care of existing resources.
ALCOM's project design is based on the believe that all resources should not be used to train directly fish farmers in the field. To be a sustainable model, proper public institutions should be interested, and existing extension systems for other rural activities should be used for aquaculture. Public opinion should be influenced to create a positive climate for discussing fish farming. Information should reach all important actors interested in aquaculture. Such a rather diffuse model for creating awareness about the importance of aquaculture in the SADC member countries may be called The ALCOM Model.
Project design is assessed from three main aspects of organisational behaviour: structure, processes and organisational culture. It is concluded that the ALCOM project has focused its resources on its headquarters where administration and coordination of the pilot projects will take place. In this way, a critical mass of technical assistance, in reality research and communication capability is concentrated there. This makes it easier to put aquaculture subjects on the political agenda. This is one of the strong sides of ALCOM.
The internal processes in the ALCOM Programme are more dualistic. On one hand, decision making and communications between headquarters and field activities are good and informal, even if dominated by a top-down perspective. The decision making process vis-à-vis FAO, the donors and SADC countries is much more complicated. It is characterised by rigid budgeting, planning, and controlling systems, which makes it difficult to adapt the project design according to lessons learnt during project activities. The organisational culture, not always consciously worked out, is very strong within the ALCOM project. This is seen as the major basis for keeping “The ALCOM Model” alive.
By-and-large, this top-down oriented project design is considered to be well adapted to the transfer and development of knowledge the whole project aims at.
Assessment of Implementation and Output
Project implementation is considered in three steps: financing, expenditure and output.
Over the last two years, the ALCOM Programme has been financed by three donors and national governments. Sweden has funded the Aquaculture for Local Community Development, Phase III programme. FAO has granted extra support for Aquaculture Training and Extension, in order to partly compensate for the sudden strong devaluation of the Swedish currency. For the Utilisation of Small Water Bodies for Aquaculture and Fisheriesproject, Belgium has continued and increased the support it started during ALCOM's previous phase. Government support has been in kind, for specific costs related to offices, utilities, national field staff, communications, and, in some cases, to motivate people to start activities in connection with the pilot projects. Government contributions have been about 13 percent of the total costs. The goal of 20 percent by 1996 has not yet been reached.
The expenditure shows that Sweden supports all costs for headquarters. The rest of its contribution is used in Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia. These two last countries overlap with Belgium funded pilot projects. The Small Water Bodies Project is also active in Zimbabwe. Support from each national government is used only for activities taking place in a particular country. The relative importance of ALCOM headquarters is emphasised by the fact that it spends more than 40 percent of the total resources.
Accounts also show that there is a heavy emphasis on personnel costs, mostly to cover the salaries of foreign specialists. General operating expenses appear relatively too low, (only 6%) which means that there is too little “seed money” to make innovations in field activities possible. A redistribution of budget allocations would usually be recommended, but not in this case. It would destroy the “critical mass” necessary to fulfil the holistic role of ALCOM.
The output of the whole ALCOM Programme is assessed by comparing the planned activities according to workplans with output. This is based on observations in the field by the evaluation mission and progress reports as well as numerous interviews with fish farmers and field workers.
When analysing the aquaculture pilot projects of the Core Programme, it is found that three of the four pilot projects have fulfilled their workplans and together they respond well to the immediate objective on methodology development. There remains some more work to be done, however, before sustainability of the integration of fish farming techniques can be expected.
Concerning the field activities of the Small Water Bodies Project, all three immediate objectives have been adhered to in each of the four pilot projects. The projects so far seem to be promising. But, according to the programme, a good deal of development work still remains to be done. In general, there seems to be a certain under staffing, especially for the socio-economic studies. Greater efforts should be invested in the development of the regional database on water resources, because of the great interest this project is raising even outside the ALCOM network.
Core activities of headquarters are divided into three headlines in the workplans: management and coordination, information dissemination and regional development. These headlines correspond to the immediate objective of managing the whole programme. Another immediate objective states that ALCOM should create awareness of the importance of integrating aquaculture in farming activities. But, no workplan is proposed for this. It is also the case for the immediate objective on promoting increased support from national and local governments. If these objectives are adhered to, it is obviously without concrete connection to the formalised planning system.
The assessment concludes that management fulfils its central administrative tasks in a fully acceptable way. A more strategic approach to management would have been better, but the absence of this is fully understandable in relation to the supranational structure ALCOM works in.
Besides management tasks, there are also operative activitiesat headquarters, even if they are classified as administrative activities in the workplans. The information service is working quite well. The work on regional development has not been very progressive so far, and a more advanced approach is expected for the future. Backstopping of field activities takes also place from headquarters, but the most important activity consists in supervising and synthesising tasks done by specialists coordinating field work. These are the activities most concretely related to ALCOM objectives: to develop know-how on integrating fish production in everyday agricultural activities in relation to small ponds and small water bodies.
In its overall assessment, the evaluation mission has found that an efficient and rather advanced organisation develops knowledge on rather simple aquaculture techniques in the field. Action research is not easy, however, and the next chapter will show the results more in detail.
Results
Some of the most significant results achieved to-date consist in the development and testing of methodologies appropriate to the social and institutional environments of SADC member countries. They pertain to three areas:
Small-scale fish farming development for increased sustainability: Zambia-developed methodology further tested and adopted in Zambia, Mozambique, Tanzania. Good results already obtained.
Participatory approach to small water bodies management: Zimbabwe-developed methodology now tested/adopted in Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia and Southern Zimbabwe, involving 21 SWB and surrounding communities. Only partial results obtained until now.
Rapid evaluation of small water bodies fishery potential: basis for biological model being developed from 21 sets of data collected at regular intervals.
Appropriate fish culture methods and systems developed/tested in Zambia are being further tested and adopted in Zambia (improved methods), Mozambique and Tanzania with mixed results. Drought has delayed outputs in the two first countries but good progress is now being made. Private production of tilapia fingerlings is slower than expected.
Development and testing of methods and guidelines for community-based enhancement and management of SWB fish resources: results to become increasingly available by mid - 1997 from Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Fishery potential assessment in SWB at regional and national levels is progressing very well. The database is now available for five countries in a user friendly and geographically - based interface. It holds an enormous potential for general planning (water resources management, fisheries, health, nutrition) at SADC regional level and country level.
The capacity of national and local development institutions has been strengthened for sustained promotion of fish culture methods and systems among smallholder farmers, through:
pilot projects in Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Results are still variable depending mainly on institutional responsibilities.
meetings at national and regional levels
socio-economic and cultural surveys in small-scale farmers communities
A regional identity has been created by ALCOM.
Training of national staff has taken place both at national, sub-national and local levels, through seminars, technical consultation and workshop, PRAs, creel surveys and on-the-job experience (professional national staff).
Local adoption by rural communities of appropriate fish culture practices is particularly widespread in Eastern Province, Zambia, because of the long and strong presence of ALCOM personnel. In Mozambique and Tanzania, adoption is increasing after a development time lag. Adoption of appropriate methods for enhancement/management of fish production in SWB is slowly developing in the four countries involved. Dam committees have been established. Awareness has been built at community and local government levels.
ALCOM Programme has well impacted in various ways on most governments directly involved in pilot projects (Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia). The Information Service and the library have also had a great impact in the SADC Region and far away outside it.
Major contributors to success were efficient telecommunications in Zimbabwe, support from governments at national and local levels, support from local communities, and collaboration with local projects and Agritex (Harare).
Major constraints were renewal of professional staff, FAO reorganisation, ALCOM headquarters transfer to new premises and the severe 1994–95 drought.
Sustainability of ALCOM results still remains questionable for several reasons:
Findings
On the general level, the evaluation mission remarks that the “ALCOM Model” in itself represents an innovative approach compared to most development models. The development activities do not depend on direct support in terms of economic means and equipment. It is in fact the often preferred, but seldom realised way to transfer “pure” knowledge.
Unexpectedly ALCOM has been found to be a top-down oriented organisation based on a heavy weight headquarters, rather than a decentralised field organisation with a coordinating centre. The special character of the programme of work, the development of knowledge rather than implementation and operation of regular activities, is actually favoured of this “elitist” approach. It has been assessed as efficient, and may also be described by the industrial term “lean production”. Great attention has been focused on aquaculture activities at a rather small cost, compared to most activities aiming to support rural development.
One might think that the gap is too great between the sophisticated development work performed mainly in ALCOM headquarters and the often very basic activities performed by the farmers at village level. But in reality, research activities build generalised knowledge. In the long term perspective, this is most useful to upgrade the consciousness of all involved parties. In the short term, it affects existing conditions by establishing the culture, which is a necessary part of the professional body of ALCOM. This serves as a guarantee for government officials and others that there is a sense in engaging in these new and sometimes questioned activities.
ALCOM has started as a project. Projects should be goal-directed and limited in time and resources. A project should ideally aim at making the target groups independent of it, which means that the goal should be to finish the project as soon as possible. ALCOM has developed in another direction. By proving the usefulness of its information service and other development activities for mobilising private small-scale farmers, public institutions and local resources, the pay off of more permanent activities has become obvious. The project is now pointing at continuation, and even at institutionalisation, which is in conflict with its original objectives. This means that it is time to reformulate ALCOM objectives and to consider possible new institutional settings.
On more specific issues, the evaluation mission points at the fact that the Aquaculture Programme and the Small Water Bodies Project share a number of common elements such as target groups, aquaculture in various applications, socio-economic issues, etc. Keeping these projects under the same umbrella may offer important comparative advantages for formulating policy issues concerning future implementation in the SADC countries.
For the Swedish-funded Core Programme, including the Aquaculture Project, it is pointed out that fish production in small ponds should be seen as an integrated part of agriculture, agro-forestry, water resources management, etc. as a part of a self reliance perspective. ALCOM Phase III points more clearly that the earlier phases to these cross sectoral aspects. A more interdisciplinary approach to each pilot project will therefore be required.
For the Belgian-funded Small Water Bodies Project it is specifically noted that it is raising great interest. But it is also feared that the management models under preparation might be too expensive to apply with local funding alone. This example demonstrates the dilemma of advanced development work. All results are not necessarily positive results.
Concerning the database for small water bodies in the SADC countries, the greatest interest has been expressed to the mission by organisations and professionals outside the ALCOM inner circle. This project might become the spring board for creating new networks and finding new partners for future collaboration.
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