Conducting the vulnerability assessment in Toungup Township, Rakhine State.

Fisheries and aquaculture sector in Myanmar is critically important to the country’s food and nutrition security and economy. At the same time, the country is vulnerable to extreme climate events, which have caused significant loss of lives, damage to infrastructure and also had important impact in the livelihoods of fishing communities.
Right now, Myanmar faces significant challenges in addressing these issues and achieving sustainable management and utilization of its aquatic resources. The issues include weak governance, organizational capacities, institutional arrangements, limited technical capacity and knowledge; and limited resources for the development and implementation of adaptation plans.

The GEF-funded FAO project namely “Strengthening the adaptive capacity and resilience of fisheries and aquaculture-dependent livelihoods in Myanmar” which was launched in 2017 is assisting the Government in enabling inland and coastal fishery as well as aquaculture stakeholders to adapt to climate change by understanding and reducing vulnerabilities, piloting new practices and technologies, and sharing information. In collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation (MoALI), the project organized the 6th Myanmar Fisheries Partnership (MFP) meeting in March and the 1st Project Partnership Meeting in June – with the participation of senior MoALI officials and representatives from stakeholder and partner organizations.

At the 6th MFP meeting, consultations on the National Aquaculture Development Plan took place as well as a brainstorming on the effective future coordination methods in order to achieve synergy between MFP partners. Likewise, the 1st Project Partnership Meeting resulted in developing the project’s “scaling-up” strategy to increase the support to 120 communities with 90,000 direct beneficiaries. Both events brought together the Government and development partners to collaborate for the sustainable development of Myanmar fisheries and aquaculture sector.
Through the project, FAO remains committed to strengthen the national, regional, and local regulatory frameworks and adaptive capacities of the fisheries and aquaculture sector as well as to reinforce the resilience of Myanmar’s aquaculture sector to the impacts of climate change.