Coastal Africa aims to net billions from neglected fishing industry

The rich but delicate ecosystems that surround Africa's coasts have helped sustain human populations since the dawn of our species. Yet few would deny that the artisanal economic activities around Africa's waters have been a low priority for almost all governments since independence. Small-scale fishing communities, which are difficult to tax, have long complained of neglect.

There are some signs, however, that the tide is beginning to turn. Internationally, the need to protect the oceans and make sustainable use of their resources has risen up the agenda.

And African policymakers have begun to pay attention to the concept of the "blue economy".

"I'm very optimistic," says Linda Amornghor-Oje Etta, senior blue economy adviser at the African Union (AU).

More governments are recognising the benefits of a thriving blue economy, she tells African Business, noting that the AU has helped more than 30 African governments develop blue economy strategies.

"The scope of the blue economy is expanding, and that's why we are seeing more countries engaged in it."

The blue economy is a broad concept. It includes all economic activities that make use of resources from seas, lakes and rivers, encompassing everything from fisheries and aquaculture to tourism, marine energy, carbon sequestratio and biotechnology.

African leaders may also have realised that the blue economy is big business. The AU and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) are running a programme over the next four years, with the aim of generating $405bn and creating 57m jobs.

A common thread that runs through all activities related to the blue economy is sustainability. This is a quality that has often been absent in other parts of the world. Some countries have developed industrialised fishing sectors and advanced aquaculture industries, but at the expense of immense environmental damage. Africa now has a chance to take a different course.

Policies and piracy

There is no shortage of policies and plans around the blue economy, and specifically fishing, in Africa. The blue economy is embedded in the UN Sustainable Development Goals and in the AU's Agenda 2063. Major countries, including Kenya and Nigeria, have created blue economy ministries. A regular stream of blue economy events has been added to the diplomatic circuit.

Yet many coastal African countries lack full control over their own exclusive economic zones. Half of the industrial vessels implicated in "illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing" around the world operate in African waters, according to a 2022 report by the Financial Transparency Coalition.

Beatrice Gorez is coordinator at the Coalition for Fair Fisheries Arrangements, a non-profit that raises awareness of how fisheries arrangements affect artisanal fishing communities. She notes that foreign fishing fleets can often evade restrictions through chartering fishing vessels that sail under local flags. Another common practice is to form "joint ventures" with local companies to disguise the true ownership of fishing fleets.

"Most of the actions and operations by vessels of foreign origin are legal. They're unsustainable, but they are legal," she says.

The failure of many African governments to protect their maritime sovereignty reflects the lowly position of the fisheries sector in the political pecking order. "Governments today are listening to sectors that will bring money," says Gorez. Industrial fishing companies, whether of local or foreign origin, can potentially get a hearing, but small-scale fishers are "marginalised in the decision-making process".

High Seas brought low

Oceana, a marine conservation non-governmental organisation, warned earlier this year that overfishing off West Africa is having "devastating consequences" for local communities. It blames the trend on trawlers over-exploiting small pelagic fish (those that live neither close to the bottom of the ocean nor near the shore), the bulk of which is exported to Europe and used as feed for farmed salmon.

The recent David Attenborough documentary Ocea featured John Adams, a Liberian fisherman. "Our nets used to be full," he said, as he lamented competition from trawlers that seize vast shoals of fish from the seas. It is becoming ever harder for artisanal fishing communities to land a decent catch, Adams complained. "The bigger sizes are gone. They are no more."

His experience highlights how marine resources are renewable resources, but only if they are allowed to renew themselves. Conserving the resources goes hand-in-hand with their economic use.

A recent development that could help Africa's coastal fishers is the High Seas Treaty, also known as the biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ) agreement. African countries have taken a prominent role in negotiating the landmark deal. In September, Morocco became the sixtieth country to ratify the treaty, meaning it will take effect in January. Another 16 African countries had completed the ratification process as of 13 November.

What happens on the high seas, which begin 200 nautical miles from the nearest landmass, may seem of remote importance to Africa's population and even its coastal fishing communities.

But Karen Sack, a South African who leads the Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance, an organisation seeking to attract investment into the blue economy, says the high seas are "absolutely critical" for food security and mitigating climate change. "This treaty is closing a gap in international ocean governance that has been there forever."

Ensuring better governance of the high seas could become an important step towards building a sustainable blue economy around Africa's coasts. Sack notes that industrial fishing fleets often "fish the line", meaning they lurk just outside of Africa's exclusive economic zones - or sometimes, covertly, within them - "scooping up and stealing the fish from those waters". This decimates the vast shoals of fish that naturally migrate from the high seas to African coastal waters. Fewer fish are then available for the small boats that stick close to the coast.

The treaty will make it easier to create marine protected areas within international waters. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), for example, is developing a proposal for a protected area around the convergence zone of the Canary and Guinea currents. In theory, if this segment of the high seas was well-protected, fish species would flourish within the protected zone and migrate into the coastal waters where they could be sustainably fished.

A man sorts dried fish ready to be packed for different destinations at the shores of Lake Turkana in Loiyangalani area, in Marsabit, northern Kenya. (Photo by Simon MAINA / AFP) Tech tide

Combating overfishing is a vital step towards creating a truly sustainable blue economy. This does not mean, however, that fishers must stick to traditional methods. In fact, a range of technologies are helping to drive innovation in small-scale fishing.

South African social enterprise Abalobi is pioneering the use of technology to support small-scale fishing communities. Abalobi's approach is "all about data," says Serge Raemaekers, its executive director. Its work, he tells us, revolves around "supporting fishermen and fisherwomen and fisher groups to articulate their local ecological knowledge and to record their catch, their expense, their income and other things they might want to observe and record and monitor".

This data "creates the basis, not only for more sustainable fisheries management and collaborative fisheries management, but for your business plan as an individual or as a cooperative".

Abalobi also provides training to help fishers make data-driven decisions, and enables fishers to participate in a market access programme. This aggregates the catch landed by different fishers, provides cold storage facilities, and connects the produce to retailers and other buyers. The condition of participating in this programme is that the fishers collect data to show they are fishing sustainably.

Raemaekers says that while small-scale fishers around South Africa have tended to find themselves "in a situation of despair," Abalobi's work proves that a better reality is possible. Fishers can earn a fairer price while operating sustainably, he says, providing the right structures are in place. "A sustainable fisheries management framework is possible, and it's not a pie in the sky idea. It's actually very practical."

Abalobi, which was founded in 2017, has expanded from South Africa to a further 10 countries. The organisation was a finalist for the prestigious Earthshot Prize in 2023 for its work to promote sustainable fisheries. The secret to Abalobi's success, Raemaekers believes, is that while it is using technology and data, nothing it does is "rocket science". Its innovations are based on "relatively basic existing stuff that are affordable and scalable".

Food security

By 2050, Africa will have 2.5bn mouths to feed, an increase of more than 900m from today. Clinton Obura, CEO at Kenyan start-up Samaking, is convinced fish must be an important part of the solution for the continent's food security challenge. His mission, he says, is to "make fish the number one protein on African plates".

Obura notes that, in Kenya, conditions like gout are on the rise as red meat becomes an increasing part of the diet. "From a lifestyle perspective, white meat is a better source of protein compared to red meat." Fish can also be cheaper than other sources of protein, he adds.

Yet Obura cites estimates that Kenyans consume just 4.7 kg of fish a year on average, compared to a global average of 20.5 kg.

The good news is that local production of fish is on the rise, and imports are falling, largely due to the growth of aquaculture.

The Kenyan aquaculture industry is dominated by tilapia, which is farmed in cages on Lake Victoria and in thousands of ponds in the west of the country. Production of farmed fish has increased almost threefold since 2017, according to official statistics. Samaking began life as a "market access and aggregation solution," Obura says. Its initial focus was on providing cold chain facilities, which meant fish could more easily be transported to markets where it would demand a higher price. Meeting the cold chain challenge boils down to supply and demand, Obura says.

"Cold chain is not the problem, because cold chain is just infrastructure that the fish needs to move," he says. "If there's enough volumes of fish, the supply chain can afford the cold chain. So really, the trick is, do you have enough product moving through your supply chain to afford getting cold chain?"

The key, Obura says, is to support fish farmers in becoming more productive. This comes down to ensuring access to quality inputs, particularly fish feed and fingerlings (juvenile fish), which in turn requires input financing. "A normal tilapia production cycle is six months. A farmer has to feed the fish for six months before they can harvest and get money for it. Not a lot of African farmers have that kind of money."

Obura says that as Samaking seeks to scale up its integrated offering, it has been able to "ride the wave" around investor and donor concern over climate. Solar-powered cold chain facilities, he notes, provide an opportunity to make productive use of renewable energy. This in turn helps impact-minded investors contribute towards a double win on food security and climate.

There are many other opportunities to use technology in the burgeoning aquaculture sector. Again, technology does not have to be sophisticated.

WAVU, another Kenyan start-up, is positioning itself as a digital middleman through a "very simple WhatsApp platform," says Lorna Mudegu, its co-founder. Fish farmers can use the WhatsApp service, which is powered by an AI bot, to order inputs. As an aggregator, WAVU can then supply these inputs at a significant discount, helping farmers to save 15% on average, according to Mudegu.

She adds that the company has already welcomed 1,500 farmers in Kenya. It also provides advisory services through its platform and is looking for partners to help provide input financing.

Turkana fishermen dock at the shores of Lake Turkana in Loiyangalani area, in Marsabit, northern Kenya. (Photo by Simon MAINA / AFP) Sustainable aquaculture

As with fishing, aquaculture comes with sustainability challenges that could threaten its future ability to sustain production.

Stanford University professor Rosamond Naylor highlights how farming at too great a density leaves fish more vulnerable to disease, potentially leading to overuse of antibiotics.

Effective regulation is needed, she says, to help the industry grow sustainably. The alternative could be disease outbreaks, like the 2007-2009 outbreak of infectious salmon anaemia virus in Chile, which caused salmon production to collapse by 60% in the country.

Naylor says levels of sustainability vary within the Kenyan aquaculture sector. In Siaya County, where production is dominated by smallholders, "it just looks like everything is all piled on top of each other, and it could blow up any time with a disease or upwelling event," says Naylor. But around Homa Bay on Lake Victoria, where higher-value fish are farmed, standards of sustainability appear far higher, she reports.

In practice, Naylor notes that larger, vertically integrated companies can be better placed to farm fish sustainably, given that they have the capital to source high-quality feeds that are produced sustainably.

Today, Africa accounts for just 2% to 3% of global aquaculture production; over 90% happens in Asia. Yet Africa has a "leapfrogging opportunity" in the sector, says Essam Yassin Mohammed, the director-general of WorldFish, a non-profit research organisation. He believes Africa can catch up, while learning from Asia's mistakes.

"Africa is where Asia used to be about 40 or 50 years ago," says Mohammed. While Asian countries such as China, Vietnam and Bangladesh have achieved rapid growth in aquaculture, this growth has been accompanied by the loss of coastal mangroves and the overuse of antibiotics.

Mohammed believes genetic improvement of fish stocks will be a key part of the solution for Africa. Genetic improvement derives from the ancient practice of selective breeding, but can now be accelerated with high-tech methods of genetic analysis so that improved strains can be bred more quickly.

An example is genetically improved farmed tilapia, known as GIFT, which was developed by WorldFish. The growth rates of these strains have increased by around 10% per generation over the course of more than 30 years. Faster-growing GIFT require less feed, which typically accounts of around 70% of the costs of fish farming. "It can reduce the cost and maximise profitability for the farmer," says Mohammed. What is more, he adds, "the ecological footprint drastically drops."

Indeed, Mohammed says Abbassa tilapia, another improved strain bred by WorldFish for the Egyptian market, has an ecological footprint 36% lower than its wild cousin, reflecting its faster growth. As in many areas, fulfilling Africa's immense blue economy potential in fisheries and aquaculture will depend in large part on finance.

The continent has been at the forefront of innovative financing mechanisms. The Seychelles, for example, became the first country to issue a sovereign "blue bond" in 2018. This instrument allowed the country to "swap" some of its high-interest debt, in return for investing part of the savings in marine conservation and sustainable fisheries.

Oyster farmer Seynabou Diop gathers oysters in Joal-Fadiouth, Senegal. (Photo by SEYLLOU / AFP) Fishing for finance

Yet a huge financing gap still remains. In aquaculture alone, WorldFish estimates Africa needs an extra $12bn a year. The problem is not that money is lacking globally: Mohammed points out that the world spends $40bn a year on "harmful subsidies" for unsustainable fishing. Africa, however, needs better incentive mechanisms and a stronger policy environment to attract investment, Mohammed says.

He adds that governments and other key stakeholders still need to realise the true potential of the blue economy if they are to bring capital into the space. "There is a sheer lack of awareness in terms of the potential of the sector in the region, by people in the region themselves. There's a know-how gap."

Building a truly sustainable blue economy will not be easy. It will take time for broad policy goals to translate into concrete actions. But the reality that a flourishing African blue economy is vital for conservation, livelihoods and food security is getting harder to ignore.