World Bank Funds Regional Fisheries Project

World Bank funds regional fisheries project

NAIROBI, Oct. 9 (Xinhua) — The World Bank and Kenya on Tuesdaysigned a 12 million U.S. dollars agreement to fund a regional project to help eight countries in the Southwest Indian Ocean region to manage fisheries resources and reduce poverty through sustainable development of marine resources.

Speaking during the signing of the agreement, Kenyan Finance Minister Amos Kimunya, who signed the grant on behalf of other seven countries with World Bank country director Collin Bruce in Nairobi, said the grant would be used to support the regional fisheries project.

He said Kenya has been chosen to provide leadership in implementation of the project, which will help promote sustainableuse of fish resources through adoption by the Southwest Indian Ocean-riparian countries of a large marine ecosystem (LME)- based approach to fisheries management.

“The grant will go a long way to improve research and build knowledge on our marine resources for our exploitation and posterity,” Kimunya told journalists.

Besides Kenya, the countries to benefit from the funding include Tanzania, Madagascar, Mozambique, Comoros, Mauritius, South Africa, Seychelles.

World Bank country director Collin Bruce said the fisheries project in the eight countries is expected to promote sustainable exploitation of fisheries, so as to help low income earners.

“The project will adopt an ecosystem approach which will lead to an improved understanding of transboundary and environmental influences on stock health, the life histories of key species and variability in inter-annual estimates of stock abundance,” Bruce said.

About 93 percent of Kenya’s fish catches within its waters comefrom fresh water lakes. This is because most of the fisheries activities practiced at the coast on marine waters is mainly artisanal and close to the shore.

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