This snapshot taken on 22/04/2009, shows web content selected for preservation by The National Archives. External links, forms and search boxes may not work in archived websites.

Agriculture and food

Promoting agriculture to meet the poverty and hunger Millennium Development Goals.

Fisheries

Like most renewable natural resources, fisheries are highly susceptible to overexploitation. Fuelled by weak governance and management arrangements combined with the increasing global demand for and trade in fish products, this represents a significant yet little understood cost to developing states’ economies which they can ill-afford to neglect.

Renewable resources from marine and coastal ecosystems, particularly fisheries, are valuable assets. With relatively modest investment combined with political determination, their inherent wealth can be unlocked and so help growth and poverty reduction. However, countries face many obstacles stopping them from benefiting from fisheries:

  • Poor planning capacity and awareness of options
  • Little understanding of the potential economic value of fisheries
  • Weak institutional capacity in public and private sectors
  • Lack of fisheries policy and management arrangements
  • Ineffective and non-conducive legal and fiscal climate for private investment
  • Poor access to markets and barriers to trade
  • Culture of corruption and non-compliance.

Illegal fishing

Illegal fishing is a massive global problem. Losses from illegal fishing are likely to amount to around $23 billion globally and more than $1 billion to sub-Saharan Africa. It also has a negative impact on the environment and on the livelihoods of current and future generations of poor people who depend on fisheries resources. Illegal fishing undermines the rule of law at national and international levels and distorts global markets by depressing prices for commodities that are particularly important to the economies of developing countries.

What DFID is doing

A joint fisheries programme is being implemented by Defra and DFID with funding from both departments. The programme aims to foster UK engagement with international policies that address fisheries governance and trade, to enable fisheries to contribute more effectively to economic growth, welfare and poverty reduction. Improved fisheries management and tackling illegal fishing are current priorities.

Links

Fishermen fishing illegally in Uganda

Ugandan fishermen processing an illegal catch

Worldwide, over a billion people depend on fisheries, on forests and farming to earn a living.

Douglas Alexander Secretary of State

Fighting Poverty Index