The UK government has pledged up to £45 million to support the fishing and aquaculture industries in Africa and Asia.
The funding from the UK’s Climate and Ocean Adaptation and Sustainable Transition (COAST) programme will help support a CGAIR programme led by research centre WorldFish to create an Asia-Africa BlueTech Superhighway.
The aim is to help communities respond to climate change as well as sustainably manage their coastal resources to improve food security and create job opportunities, particularly for the women who typically work in these sectors.
“Targeting assault on marine ecosystems compounded by climate change, this project will help to realise the great potential of sustainable, low carbon and nature-positive aquatic food systems to strengthen food security, livelihoods and economic growth in some of the world’s most vulnerable populations,” commented WorldFish director general and CGIAR senior director of Aquatic Food Systems, Dr Essam Yassin Mohammed.
The Asia-Africa BlueTech Superhighway will focus on strengthening aquatic food systems in Africa and Asia, through deploying already tried-and-tested innovations used in the global south as well as trialling new approaches and technologies.
This includes conversation schemes, data-based systems for managing small-scale fisheries and integrated seawater farming rearing fish alongside algae and shellfish.
The initiative will also target processing technologies such as solar tent tryers and smoking kilns to help reduce waste as well as encouraging governments and industry to share best practices.
