10. Aquaculture in Latin America progressed beyond the experimental stage some 20 years ago and emerged as an activity, with, in some cases, a sizeable economic impact.
11. Where the specifics of aquaculture are accurately and appropriately interpreted and the natural resources and right technology available, aquaculture may come to play an important role in the economic and social development of the region.
12. Any strategy to achieve the objectives of development (i.e. to increase aquaculture output for commercial and food supply purposes) should take into account the critical economic conditions of most of the countries of the region, the scant attention generally paid to the aquaculture sector and the fierce competition from other economic sectors. The strategy will therefore have to be based on limited (minimum) financial inputs from the governments concerned. This means that the strategy will, as far as possible, have to use already-existing resources in terms of: organization, human resources, facilities, technology and research infrastructure.
13. The first necessary step logically concerns the national structures that regulate, administer and develop the aquaculture sector. If these bodies are to attain the requisite level of effectiveness they need to be able to:
Formulate and implement aquaculture development policies;
Make existing know-how both technical and managerial, available to the current or potential productive sector;
Coordinate efforts to acquire new capacities, thereby minimizing costs;
Increase national bargaining power for the procurement of new technologies;
Establish contacts and working relations with counterpart agencies in other regions of the world.
14. Similar international actions will need to be undertaken through the establishment of an intra-regional cooperation system (Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries, TCDC) so as to increase the regional benefits through the sharing of experiences and the coordination of efforts to acquire new capacities.
15. If the TCDC cooperation system is to be effective and operational, it should:
Be designed on the basis of constant evaluation and validation of its objectives;
Adopt operational mechanisms that are based on a realistic assessment of the mutual interests of the participating countries;
Be directly managed by the participating countries, duly organized within a permanent, regional intergovernmental structure.
16. Given the present economic conditions of the region, it would be inappropriate to suggest the creation of a new body to implement the system. This would only represent an additional burden for the countries which are already supporting existing organizations. The system should therefore be assigned to an already existing intergovernmental body. Here are some possible immediate objectives for this structure:
To establish and operate a technical cooperation exchange mechanism among the countries of the region;
To support the national structures responsible for regulating, administering and developing the aquaculture sector, thereby enhancing their performance;
To assist the governments in identifying, formulating and evaluating technical cooperation and investment projects and in seeking funding;
To coordinate the interventions of the various external agencies operating in the region so as to improve their effectiveness. Here again, the bargaining position of the potential recipients of technology, advice, etc., represented in this case by the regional intergovernmental structure, need to be strengthened. Any subsequent negotiation gains will benefit the region as a whole.
17. The financial resources needed for the operation of this regional structure could be procured from:
Grants from external sources such as multi - or bilateral cooperation organizations;
The payment of basic dues by the member countries;
Remuneration for services provided to the users (member countries and external organizations).
18. The organizational structure, the operational method and the implementation time-frame should be based on a careful preliminary study which could serve as the basis for the necessary negotiations. As already mentioned, the use of an already-existing intergovernmental body would virtually keep costs to present levels. In any event, any additional expense incurred from these proposed functions would considerably undercut the cost of setting up an ad hoc body.
19. FAO would play a fundamental role in the implementation of the proposed strategy. This would be essentially (but not exclusively)1 based on the activities planned for the second phase of the AQUILA Project, whose objectives are:
To contribute towards the reinforcement of national government structures for the promotion and development of aquaculture by means of training, research and information actions centering on policy formulation, planning and management;
To promote, coordinate and/or execute cooperation and investment projects by channeling external resources from multi- and bilateral cooperation agencies and international financial organizations, in line with priorities that have been jointly identified with the countries;
To constitute a regional means of communication and mediation as an outlet for national concerns and needs. This would also help to reorder assistance functions within the various FAO services dealing with the aquaculture sector;
To transmit the cumulative operational experience and information from the first and second phases of the AQUILA Project to the regional structure for possible follow-up activities. The final objective would be regional coordination and the integration of S-S and N-S cooperation, in line with the orientations presented in this paper.
20. Appendix 1 summarizes the implementation of this strategy during phase 1 of the AQUILA Project. It also includes a number of indicators of project impact on the aquaculture sector.
