Sustainable fisheries project launched for Sudan’s Red Sea State

The government of Norway and the UN Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) on Wednesday launched a €4.8 million project for the sustainable management of marine fisheries in Sudan’s Red Sea State.

In a statement this week, the UNIDO Representative to Sudan, Khaled El Mekwad, explains that information on the status of fish stocks and actual fish landings in the Red Sea State is limited. The annual unutilised economic potential of the marine fishery is estimated to range between €13-25 million. “To realise this potential in a sustainable way, reliable information on the status of the resources and fish landings is required as well as strengthened institutional capacity and good governance of the Sudanese fishery resource. In the Red Sea State small-scale and artisanal fisheries, play an important role in food security, livelihood, poverty eradication and equitable development.”

The Government of Norway has granted € 4.2 million to support  the project “Building institutional capacities for the sustainable management of the marine fishery in the Red Sea State” to be jointly implemented by UNIDO and the Norwegian Institute for Marine Research, in cooperation with the Marine Fisheries Administration in the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Resources and Fisheries of Red Sea State. The remaining amount of € 0.6 million is jointly covered by the Government of Sudan and UNIDO.

Over the next three years, the project will collect and analyse information, implement monitoring surveys of the coastal fish stocks, and develop a state of the art database on fish landings. The project comes in line with the strategic priorities for Norwegian development assistance, and Norwegian efforts in contributing to improved governance of natural resources in Sudan.