The present regional review and synthesis for sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) provides an overview of major issues and trends in the aquaculture sector between 2004 and 2014 with emphasis on outstanding issues over the last five years. The regional review reflects development in 41 countries in SSA for which production was reported to FAO in 2014. The production volume and value data have been derived from the latest FAO global aquaculture dataset 1950-2014 (FishStat).

This review provides an overview of the status, trends, challenges and projections for aquaculture in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and evaluates the major trends during previous five years. While the sector still faces various internal and external challenges, the inherent natural potential of the region and rapidly increasing demand for fish has resulted in increased prioritization of aquaculture in almost all SSA countries and the African Union and subsidiary bodies have given special attention to the sector development. In order to realize its full potential, the SSA region needs to address a combination of overarching factors limiting aquaculture development so far, such as ineffective development approaches, weak governance frameworks, underdeveloped value chains and low availability as well as the high cost of key production inputs. Strengthened value chains for tilapia and catfish, promotion of new species, improved biosecurity, continued development of certification and associated harmonized best practices, improved information systems and innovations to address climate-change related impacts are some of the matters to be addressed. Financial institutions and private sector (national and international) have equally started investing, even though in the global picture such interventions may seem negligible, which makes the continent to call for more and higher levels technical and financial assistance from international partners. Upscale the status of production and productivity via healthy investments would help the sector to generate a variety of benefits including food security, livelihoods, employment, domestic and intra-regional markets, foreign currency income and other socio-economic benefits.

This edited book presents the emerging sustainable innovations in all areas of aquaculture in Africa with a view to create an opportunity whereby scientific outputs and recommendations can be endorsed for improved aquaculture outputs towards poverty alleviation and food security on the continent. Food insecurity and poverty are some of the challenges faced on the African continent. These challenges are further exacerbated by the growing human population and the impacts of climate change. Today, aquaculture has become one of the fastest food producing sectors in the world, with the potential to contribute significantly to food security and poverty alleviation in developing countries. In Africa, aquaculture is at an infant stage, however, many African countries have recognized the potential roles of aquaculture in food security, poverty alleviation and conservation of aquatic resources through their commitment to achieve the United Nation Sustainable Development Goals. The book reviews and synthesize research work from these thematic areas across Africa and provide a unique perspective on the emerging aquaculture innovations and illustrate how aquaculture practices could be feasible and cost effective while promoting social and environmental sustainability. The book also draws from global discussions on sustainable aquaculture practices and provides recommendations on what is feasible for Africa. This book is a great tool for the university students, scholars, aquaculture farmers, investors, and policymakers to understand the scientific based sustainable aquaculture innovations from an African perspective. This book is focused on SDG 2 and SDG 14.

FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Circulars Global aquaculture production in 2015 reached 106 million tonnes, with an estimated value of US$163 billion, although the average annual growth rate of world aquatic animal production slowed to 6.4 percent in the period 2001–2015. Bringing together information from six regional reviews, this report examines how the aquaculture sector has performed over the past five years and draws lessons for ensuring sustainable growth and expansion in the years ahead.

This book provides a synthesis of current agricultural research in Africa with the aim of presenting evidence based information that can be directly applied into improving the African smallholder farmers’ food security. It presents positive scientific research that has been undertaken in Africa, in simpler terms, thus driving the research for development agenda contributing to the attainment of SDG 2. Numerous research that targets resource poor African smallholder farmers has been published, yet the region faces very low productivity levels. This lack of translation from research to food security and increased agricultural incomes is due to the poor uptake of scientific research by farmers, which is partly due to poor presentation of this body of knowledge into simpler forms that extension workers and farmers can directly adopt. Therefore, this book offers research information in an easy, digestible and application oriented style, so as to enable transformation of the African agricultural sector by effectively driving agricultural productivity in Africa. This book is of interest to African extension workers, who will translate the simplified knowledge into lessons that can be useful to smallholder farmers. The book is also beneficial for policy makers as well as academics, researchers and other science based professionals.

FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Circulars All Near East and North Africa countries have sea borders, whereas fresh water resources are scarce. Yet, aquaculture production in the region has doubled over the past decade, with an average annual growth rate of 9.7 percent, and the role of aquaculture in total fish production is steadily increasing. It should be noted that the Arab Republic of Egypt and the Islamic Republic of Iran contributed 74 and 21 percent respectively to total aquaculture output.