The project builds on the experience of three artisanal fisheries projects implemented along the Mozambican coast, including the closed Sofala Bank Artisanal Fisheries Project (PPABAS), financed by IFAD.

The project’s goal is to improve incomes and livelihoods for artisanal fishers and their communities. To do this, the project works to boost fishing productivity and subsequent sales sustainably, by increasing the quantity and more importantly the value of the catch and by improving all links in the value chain, right up to the market place. Implementation focuses on four investment components:

• supporting the development of higher value fish  
• improving market infrastructure
• developing financial services; and
• institutional strengthening, and promotion of policy initiatives

The project area stretches along the whole coastline from the Tanzanian border in the north to the border with South Africa in the south. The project focuses, however, on key growth poles, each comprising a major fishing centre plus a number of centres linked to the major centre up and down the coast or on adjacent islands. These growth poles have strong potential for expanding and intensifying fishing and fish marketing operations.

Wealth generated through small-scale fishing and other fishing related activities, such as processing and trading, is an important factor in rural economies, particularly given that around 80 per cent of any catch is sold. Even the so-called subsistence and semi-subsistence fishers sell a considerable share of their harvest to local traders. Hence, removing the obstacles that constrain the functioning of the fisheries value chain is expected to have a significant impact on the project’s target group and on poverty reduction.

Source: IFAD