World Aquaculture Magazine - March 2021

WWW.WA S .ORG • WORLD AQUACULTURE • MARCH 2021 7 C H A P T E R R E P O R T S T his is my first column for 2021. Let me begin by welcoming our readers, our audience into another new year. By God’s grace, I keep praying for better things ahead—understanding that many of us are still reeling in difficult circumstances due to the COVID pandemic. Just to give you the numbers in Africa to date, as I write this article in late February, so far we have lost over 102,000 people out of the 3.84 million cumulative cases recorded. We have about 3.41 million cumulative recoveries. In terms of case distribution, the majority of cases are still highly concentrated in Southern Africa (46 percent) followed by North Africa (31 percent). In other regions, the distribution of cases include East Africa (10 percent), West Africa (10 percent) and Central Africa (3 percent), according to the Africa Union Centre for Disease Control and Surveillance. A fewAfrican countries have just begun distributing vaccines this quarter and we hope this will change the situation for the better. Still on COVID, with the support of FAO, several African countries have over the past months been doing surveys and impact assessments of the pandemic on fisheries and aquaculture sectors. I have just seen some recently released survey reports for North African countries (Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania and Tunisia) at this link: http://fao.org/3/cb2991fr/cb2991fr.pdf (French versions). We hope survey results for other countries will be published soon. The African Chapter believes that there is life after the pandemic. We remain upbeat and resolute that things are going to get better with time and that our plans and activities will get back to normal eventually. We are also strengthened by one of the key take home messages from the recently heldWAS Annual Board meeting: that despite the difficult challenges, WAS remains strong in terms of its societal structures and resources, thanks to proactive efforts to build up financial reserves that have buffered us during these hard times. The Society predicts and prays that some physical revenue- based events including conferences will resume once again from later this year, thus potentially improving our financial position. The UN has declared 2021 as the International Year of Creative Economy for Sustainable Development. The year will recognize the need to promote sustained and inclusive economic growth, foster innovation and provide opportunities, benefits and empowerment for all and respect for all human rights. The year will also highlight the ongoing need to support developing countries and countries with economies in transition by diversifying production and exports, including in new sustainable growth areas such as creative industries. It further encourages all to observe the year in accordance with national priorities to raise awareness, promote cooperation and networking, encourage sharing best practices and experiences, enhance human resource capacity, promote an enabling environment at all levels as well as tackle the challenges of the creative economy. Within this sustainable development thrust, the African Union has, from January 2021, launched the implementation of the much awaited African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement, meant to accelerate intra-African trade and boost Africa’s trading position in the global market by strengthening Africa’s common voice and policy space in global trade negotiations. Although AfCFTAwas signed by all 55 African countries (except Eritrea), to date, 35 of these have ratified the agreement and have begun implementing it. We anticipate the number to keep rising. The AfCFTA has been designed as a multi-stage process, meaning that the agreement will continue to evolve over time, as more negotiations are planned. It is my desire that our aquaculture sector is not left behind in the negotiations and developments. As such, the African Chapter will aim to connect with other parties in building capacity on AfCFTA implementation, ensuring that the intra-regional trade of aquaculture-related products and services is enhanced. To achieve this, we will advocate for initiatives that will strive to eliminate barriers and distortions to trade such as duties, quotas and non-tariff barriers, among other initiatives for the aquaculture sector. We hope that the African Chapter’s position, being hosted at the Africa Union Development Agency (AUDA- NEPAD), will be of strategic significance in this regard. Looking at our programs and activities for the year, we will continue the best we can to deliver according to our promise, aiming to become the continental leader for enhanced international communications, collaboration and information exchange— serving the aquaculture community in Africa. Our continued engagement with our Founding Gold Sponsor, Aller Aqua, and good relations with our partner institutions and organizations will continue to be valuable to us as we continue the journey. We are still on course to having AFRAQ21 in Alexandria, Egypt, in December 2021. Again, I keep urging you to register and receive regular updates on the conference webpage: https://www.was. org/meeting/code/AFRAQ20. For the first time, our regions in East andWest Africa will be hosting regional e-conferences on aquaculture in May this year. The virtual conferences will aim at bringing together aquaculture actors in those regions and beyond where various aquaculture topics of relevance will be presented and discussed. We also hope to continue convening free-access webinars, including through our media and publicity partner, the Aquaculture Africa Magazine (AAM). A series of technical webinars are already lined up for the following months: a webinar series showcasing various aquaculture academic institutions in Africa; aquaculture country profile webinars for Tunisia, Mauritius, Kenya, Lesotho and other countries, and; fish farm planning and design. Make sure you don’t miss these. This year, our focus will also be on intensifying outreach efforts to French-speaking countries and audiences in Africa. In fact, it is our desire to upscale our efforts to add value to our webinars and planned e-conferences through improved translations to key languages of Africa such as French, Portuguese and possibly Arabic, and increasing their involvement in the planning of such webinars and other events. Switching to the management structure of the Chapter, we shall be conducting elections for some Board members this year. This will be for positions of President-Elect, Secretary, Treasurer and Regional Directors for Central and Southern Africa. Our elections African Chapter ( C O N T I N U E D O N P A G E 2 0 )