Donors have pledged $240 million to help Africa manage its fisheries which green groups say are being depleted by pirates and rapacious foreign trawlers in another blow to the world's poorest continent.<\/P>
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"The funding will be used to assist countries' efforts to better manage their marine fisheries and improve the living conditions of fishing communities," conservation group WWF said in a statement on Tuesday.<\/P><\/p>\n
"Among the activities eligible for support through the Fund are community-driven management programs that monitor, control and keep surveillance on fisheries and marine protected areas as well as programs that develop alternative livelihoods to fishing," WWF said.<\/P><\/p>\n
The partnership involves the World Bank, the African Union, WWF and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).<\/P><\/p>\n
"This partnership includes a commitment of $60 million from the World Bank's Global Environment Facility, which is to be matched 3-1 in funds from other donors for a total of approximately $240 million over the next 10 years," WWF said.<\/P><\/p>\n
WWF said fisheries were a key source of protein and provided millions of coastal Africans with an income.<\/P><\/p>\n
"Fish already make a vital contribution to the food and nutritional security of 200 million Africans and provide income for over 10 million, mostly small-scale fishers, farmers and entrepreneurs engaged in fish production, processing and trade," it said.<\/P><\/p>\n
"In addition, fish have become a leading export commodity for Africa, with an annual export value of $2.7 billion."<\/P><\/p>\n
But like their global counterparts, Africa's fish stocks are suffering.<\/P><\/p>\n
The United Nations estimates around 75 percent of the world's fisheries have been pushed to their limits, and Africa's coastlines are seen as a target for pirates as the region has few resources to enforce regulations at sea.<\/P><\/p>\n
Earlier this year environmental group Greenpeace helped impoverished Guinea hunt for foreign trawlers fishing illegally in West African waters. <\/P><\/p>\n
Source: Reuters<\/SMALL><\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The United Nations estimates around 75 percent of the world's fisheries have been pushed to their limits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-249702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249702\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}