Cameroon is happy to have hosted this Workshop as a logical regional follow-up to the assistance provided by FAO and WorldFish Center to the Government of Cameroon in elaborating a national Strategic Framework for Aquaculture Development. In Cameroon, as elsewhere across the Africa region, there is growing awareness of the importance of aquaculture as well as an improved understanding of the shortcomings of earlier efforts to establish sustainable aquaculture, especially fish farming, in the country. It is now incumbent on all of us, politicians, administrators, technicians and producers to learn and profit from the lessons of these initial endeavours and implement field level activities which can facilitate a private sector driven aquaculture subsector that can meet its expectations. If these expectations are, indeed, to become realities we must all adopt new attitudes to aquaculture development, enhance the returns to scarce resources and optimize the energies which our farmers so ably demonstrate in their eagerness to grow profitable crops of fish and other aquatic organisms. We must use the existing knowledge base to our advantage, focus and carefully target our interventions and foster increased public sector investment as the public sector divests archaic and redundant infrastructure. If we are able to make the hard decisions and act with prudence and expediency, we will soon be able to have farm-raised aquatic products in our markets and on our tables.
