Malawi is among three Southern African Development Community (Sadc) member states that will pilot the domestication of Sadc Protocol on Fisheries, through the national aquaculture strategy under the Strengthening the National Regional Linkages (SNRL).
This was disclosed this week during a validation workshop held in Lilongwe under a partnership programme between Sadc Secretariat and GIZ with co-funding from the German Federal Economic Cooperation and Development and European Union.
In Malawi aquaculture production has increased from 568 tonnes in 2001 to 12, 217 tonnes in 2017 then slightly decreased to 9,014 tonnes in 2018, according to available FAO statistics.
Speaking during the strategy validation session presiding guest of honour deputy director in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Faith Kazembe-Mwalubunju explained that the initiative is part of joint efforts by her ministry, Department of Fisheries and Sadc to develop approaches to domesticate instruments of regional integration into national policies, strategies and development plans such as the Malawi Growth Development Strategy and the National Transformation 2063.
“We are pleased with this process to undertake this project in Malawi, as one of the pilot countries which also include Namibia and Botswana respectively. Therefore, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs looks forward to use fisheries as a model for other sectors to also review and align their policies and strategies with the relevant protocols and subsidiary strategies under Sadc Treaty,” said Kazembe-Mwalubunju.
Sadc national consultant for Malawi, Sloans Chimatiro told participants to the strategy validation process that Malawi identified a set of alignment tools, tested, validated and proved their effectiveness to support alignment of regional and national plans in the context of the Sadc regional aquaculture strategy and action plan.
Chimatiro added that experts proposed a mechanism in form of policy brief to support or facilitate the use of the tools to guide implementation of the domesticated Sadc protocol and African Union Policy Framework and Reform Strategy at country level.
“We developed indicators to monitor the progress of alignment and implementation taking into consideration a need to meet the objectives,” he said.Protocol on Fisheries.
