FAO-WBG SPECIAL DAY, WAS AFRICA 2023, Session 3: Financing African Aquaculture

Financing African aquaculture is one of the clear bottlenecks for the sustainable expansion of the sector in this continent. Limited access to credits and appropriate business planning and development skills are locking the growth of a sector that is key for poverty alleviation, food and nutrition security and job creation in Africa. At this session, the FISH4ACP team presented a general overview of the program on value adding, GEF shared information about current and future financial opportunities for African aquaculture, the World Bank facilitated information about the financing instruments and Advisory Platforms promoting sustainable expansion of the aquaculture sector in Africa, including the AquaInvest Platform. IFC also shared his role in the food production sector in the continent. Rohana Subasinghe from FutureFish provided key aspects related to the successful establishment of Private-Public Partnerships, including some illustrative examples, and the African Development Bank presented a regional initiative for financing aquaculture managed by SADC.