Fed Govt seeks end to financial, market barriers for women, youth in fisheries
The Federal Government has called for the removal of financial and market barriers limiting women and youths in the fisheries and aquaculture sector across Africa. The government noted that the
The Federal Government has called for the removal of financial and market barriers limiting women and youths in the fisheries and aquaculture sector across Africa.
The government noted that the participation of women and youths is key to realising the benefits of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy, Mrs. Fatima Mahmood, said this at the AfCFTA-ECOWAS Regional Workshop on Women and Youth in the Fisheries and Aquaculture Value Chains.
Mrs. Mahmood, who was represented by the ministry’s Director of Marine Abiotic Resources, Ms. Angela Okereke, noted that the sector remained one of the most strategic areas through which Africa could achieve food security, job creation, poverty reduction, and economic diversification.
Baring her mind on the role of women and youth, she said: “In Nigeria and across the ECOWAS region, women and youths play indispensable roles along the fisheries and aquaculture value chain. They are actively engaged in fish production, processing, preservation, distribution and marketing. women, in particular, dominate post-harvest activities, contributing significantly to food security and household incomes, while youths are increasingly driving innovation and expansion in aquaculture and related services.
“Despite their critical contributions, women and youths continue to face structural challenges, including limited access to finance, inadequate infrastructure, post-harvest losses, weak access to markets, and limited integration into formal trade systems.
“These constraints must be addressed collectively if we are to unlock the full potential of the sector under the AfCFTA framework.”
Mrs. Mahmood acknowledged the commitment of the Federal Government to repositioning the sector by promoting sustainable fish production, improving value addition, strengthening regulatory frameworks, and enhancing access to both domestic and regional markets.
The permanent secretary stressed that as regional integration under the AfCFTA deepens, there is a need to harmonise standards, strengthen sanitary and phytosanitary systems, improve trade facilitation processes and leverage digital technologies to enhance market access.
The Director of Business Competitiveness at TradeMark Africa (TMA), Anataria Uwamariya, announced that the initiative targets the creation of over 280,000 jobs for women and youth in the fisheries value chain across Africa.
She explained that the programme is aimed at increasing fish trade handled by women and youth traders, improving access to fish feed trade and inputs, enhancing the cross-border fish trading environment, and strengthening the capacity of the AfCFTA secretariat.
“The programme’s main goals are to generate over 280,000 jobs for women and youth specifically. Of that, we envision that more than half of those will come from West Africa and specifically, we are focused on Nigeria to understand the trade routes when it comes to fish, imports into Nigeria or exports to the rest of the ECOWAS countries”.
She also said the programme hopes to tackle production costs. “At the moment, the bulk of fish feed is imported outside the African continent, yet there are resources within the African continent that would enable us to produce feed and trade it between countries.”
The representative of AfCFTA secretariat, Ms. Florence Mulenga-Sinyangwe, said efforts are ongoing to remove high tariffs, certification bottlenecks and finance gaps that block women and youth from profiting in fisheries trade across the continent.
She said the AfCFTA Secretariat has shifted from negotiations to implementation, with a focus on making trade cheaper and more inclusive.
“AfCFTA wants to ensure that all African state parties are able to participate in trade, ensure that trade is cheaper, reduce the cost, ensure that the women who were not previously able to participate in trade are able to do so because we also put in place a specific protocol which is the Protocol on Women and Youth in Trade which is going to support participation in intra-Africa trade,” Ms. Mulenga-Sinyangwe said.
Commenting on the importance of engaging women and youths in the fisheries sector, the representative of the ECOWAS Commission,
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Mr. Christopher Mensah-Yawson said recent data indicate that women form about 49 per cent of the West African population and the median age is 18.2.
He called for the formalisation of the sector to attract more investment and financial support.
“You will realise that a lot of our women operate in the informal space, particularly when it comes to fisheries and that is not illegal but we need you to scale up. We need to consider formalising processes so that whatever benefits there are in formalisation, they can get them, including access to finance,” Mensah-Yawson said.
The ECOWAS Commission chief also urged those in the sector to ensure that their goods are up to global standard.
“Let us see how we can also work towards meeting the standards that come to fisheries because it’s not good enough to make sure that we meet the standards when we export outside our jurisdiction and when it comes to internal space, we want to trade sub-standard goods for fish products. So let’s see how we can apply standards internationally, as well as regionally and domestically,” he added.
