development
projects
location Africa date February 2008 – February 2011 project team Gareth Richards
heralding a new era in African aquaculture
Poverty, food security and malnutrition are problems faced by many in sub-Saharan Africa. Development efforts focussed on agricultural production have gone some way towards addressing these issues; however aquaculture also has the ability to play a large role in improving Africa’s food security and nutritional status. The industry also provides employment and crucial income from exports.
so what’s the problem? As populations increase and changes in climate occur, there is great concern that the aquaculture industry will not be able to keep pace and develop sustainably. One of the key constraints identified is lack of access to information.
what is this project doing? To rectify this, the Sustainable Aquaculture Research Networks in Sub-Saharan Africa (SARNISSA) project was initiated. The aim being to strengthen communication and information sharing amongst a wide range of stakeholders, and encourage mutually beneficial research collaborations.
KNOWLEDGE FOR LIFE
SARNISSA was implemented by eight partner organizations (two European, three African and three international) who were tasked with developing communication networks between key stakeholders. The project builds upon CABI’s Aquaculture Compendium – an internet-based knowledge resource – as a means of sharing information. CABI’s role in SARNISSA was to coordinate the worldwide collection of information of relevance to sub-Saharan African aquaculture and collate it within the Aquaculture Compendium to create a truly global resource.
results so far The project website – www.sarnissa.org – was built in early 2008 and now receives over 2,700 visitors a month from 127 countries worldwide. The information collected is being used to inform the content of the Aquaculture Compendium – freely accessible to SARNISSA stakeholders. 20 new case studies summarizing real-life practices or situations help link theory to practice and demonstrate both success stories and failures. Reviews of some African countries’ aquaculture development policies were also written, together with the collation of existing articles and reports in English and French of interest to those involved in sub-Saharan African aquaculture. In addition, SARNISSA built a database of over 1,000 stakeholders in African aquaculture from the continent and beyond, provided a web-based news and ideas exchange forum, and held workshops for aquaculture researchers on proposal writing and e-conferencing. The SARNISSA stakeholder email listserv has allowed a whole range of users, from farmers to teachers to input suppliers, to find answers to practical problems and constraints in their day-to-day work. The forum addressed problems and provided opinions on subjects as diverse as the use of plastic liners in ponds, how to build degassers out of recycled beer crates, small-scale catfish culture and low-cost feed manufacture. There was widespread, enthusiastic response to the various services that SARNISSA provided and the project team are confident that this information-sharing initiative had a real impact on the lives of the people of Africa.
www.cabi.org/sarnissa partners University of Stirling, UK (lead partner) Bunda College, Malawi Centre de Cooperation Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Developpment (CIRAD), France ETC, Netherlands Institut de Recherche Agricole pour le Developpment (IRAD), Cameroon Moi University, Kenya WorldFish Center, Egypt
contact CABI, ICRAF Complex, United Nations Avenue, Gigiri, PO Box 633-00621, Nairobi, Kenya T: +254 20 72 24450 F: +254 20 71 22150 E: africa@cabi.org www.cabi.org/africa
ID-SARNISSA-06-12
Gareth Richards, Project Manager
donor European Commission (EC-FP7)