The African Development Fund (ADF) is currently funding the Programme for improving fisheries governance and blue economy trade corridors in the SADC region (PROFISHBLUE). Implemented by the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) and 5 other implementation partners, the objective is to promote the sustainable management of fisheries resources within the blue economy context to improve food and nutritional security, create employment through value chain activities, facilitate intra-regional trade, and build adaptive capacity against climate change and external shocks.
While the SADC region maintains vast water resources and formal fish trade has the potential to significantly create jobs and advance livelihoods, critical inefficiencies remain across SADC borders. Time-consuming border procedures, a lack of harmonized standards, and challenging conformity assessment requirements are some of the main constraints. Although many SADC countries have been making strides towards the use of One-Stop Border Posts (OSBPs), the benefits of such blue trade corridors are yet to be realized in the case of fishery products.
As such, a core component of the UNIDO-implemented assignment under PROFISHBLUE focuses on policy harmonization and trade facilitation through optimizing the OSBP and targets pre-selected bordering SADC countries. Among other objectives, the UNIDO component will lead to the development of a regional strategy on OSBPs for fisheries products piloted under specific border posts. In preparation for the development of this strategy, UNIDO undertook several analyses, including conducting a trade analysis of targeted Southern Africa fish trade, critically reviewing previous OSBP interventions, and mapping quality infrastructure across the target countries.
This publication presents the findings from these analyses, allowing external stakeholders with an interest in SADC blue economy and fisheries trade public access to the data and analysis. UNIDO recognizes that the valuable information collected extends beyond project interventions and can be used by future stakeholders to continue improving regional trade dynamics between Member States.