Our Projects

Fish is the most important animal-source food in Bangladesh. Approximately 60 percent of the population eats fish at least every other day, with per capita daily consumption at 44 grams for the poorest households.  Fish is rich in micronutrients like vitamin A, iron, and zinc. Vitamin A is essential for childhood survival, zinc reduces stunting in children and iron is essential for brain development in children. Bangladesh has high incidence of micronutrient deficiency.

The Philippines has experienced a dramatic decline in fish stocks due to overfishing and habitat degradation while demand for fish and fish-based products has continued to rise. In partnership with the Philippines’ government, the Aquaculture Futures in the Philippines project explores the future of aquaculture development in the Philippines and finds ways to grow public and private investment in the sector while sustainably improving efficiency and productivity.

Zambia has a high rate of youth unemployment. There are also noticeable disparities between men and women in the labor force, especially a lack of women formally working in the fisheries sector who have received fisheries skills training. The current technical education, vocational and entrepreneurship training (TEVET) system faces several challenges, including developing skills that are relevant to the private sector.

Freshwater capture fisheries in the Lower Mekong Basin provide a majority of the animal-source protein in local diets, and support a large proportion of community livelihoods in the region. However, the contribution of fish to supporting community welfare and livelihoods has never been fully quantified. In the absence of a solid estimate of the total economic, nutritional and livelihood value of these fisheries, their importance has often been overlooked in development planning.

CREL aims to protect key ecosystems, wetlands and ecological critical areas in Bangladesh while improving their ability to withstand climate change shocks. The project is focused on improved management of natural resources and livelihoods diversification. In partnership with key government stakeholders, the project is finding solutions to environmental, socioeconomic, legal and policy issues that hamper the creation of a workable climate change mitigation strategy.

WorldFish and the Government of Bangladesh have come together to develop effective ‘bottom of the pyramid’ solutions for small-scale shrimp and prawn farmers to comply with the World Trade Organization’s agreement on the application of sanitary and phytosanitary measures (WTO/SPS) and related Codex Alimentarius Commission and World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE). The project aims to help small-scale shrimp and prawn farmers work collaboratively and scale up their collective participation in export market value chains.

The objective of this project is to design a cost-effective, scientifically researched and participatory “incentive-based” hilsa fishery management mechanism for Myanmar. The project will employ the ecosystem-based approach (EbA) in its information gathering, analysis, and decision-making and management objectives.

Outcomes:

Extreme poverty and food insecurity are stark facts in the lives for many people living in rural Timor–Leste. This project aims to improve nutrition security and increase incomes for approximately 1500 farming households in six rural districts of Timor-Leste by promoting freshwater aquaculture. Additionally, the project aims to increase awareness about good nutritional practices and the importance of fish and other nutritious foods such as orange-fleshed sweet potatoes, leafy greens and legumes.

Rice and fish are key elements of the diet and major agricultural production sectors in Myanmar. Rice-fish systems (RFSs) encompass a spectrum of farming and fishing practices, from traditional capture of fish in rice-dominated landscapes through to controlled farming of fish in rice fields. Rice farming covers approximately 8 million ha and involves more than 5 million rural households. Myanmar governments of the recent past favored “command and control” based policies that discouraged rice farmers from diversification and making production decisions based on market demand.

Sustainably reducing poverty and improving food and nutrition security are challenges that require coordinated efforts and partnerships between organizations. The partnership between the Economy and Environment Program for Southeast Asia (EEPSEA) and WorldFish supports the sustainable management of natural resources in communities across Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam.

Since the 1980s, aquaculture production in Egypt has grown rapidly, adding substantially to the supply of affordable fish to domestic markets. As a result, aquaculture markets have become a strategic food sector that contributes to nutrition security and sustains substantial employment opportunities for informal retailers, many of whom are women. However, the informal nature of fish retailing can result in different forms of insecurity relating to insufficient lending arrangements, risk of postharvest losses and poor returns, and threat of harassment or arrest.

Poverty, vulnerability and inequality persist in many sectors of Pacific Island society. Women, men and youth often have limited opportunities to improve wellbeing outside of natural resource exploitation and, in many cases, current livelihoods do not offer a pathway out of poverty and food insecurity. This project implements a participatory livelihoods enhancement approach with community groups in Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste, where visions and enhancement pathways are co-developed into action plans. These plans are then implemented and refined through cycles of action and reflection.

A new, improved strain of tilapia could have enormous benefits for India’s poor, boosting yields, increasing nutritional benefits and opening aquaculture to more people. Genetically Improved Farmed Tilapia (GIFT) could address the twin problems Indian producers face with current strains by improving the quality of the broodstock and increasing efficiencies. The project, in partnership with Rajiv Gandhi Center for Aquaculture, involves the establishment of a nucleus for the selective breeding and genetic improvement of the GIFT tilapia in India.

The Feed the Future Bangladesh Aquaculture and Nutrition Activity’s the goal is to achieve inclusive aquaculture sector growth through a market system approach in the Feed the Future Zone of Influence (ZOI)

The Scaling up Aquaculture Production (SAP) project supports the development of the aquaculture sector in Sierra Leone to increase fish production, consumption and the incomes of small-scale farmers. Led by WorldFish, the project focuses on Tonkolili district, one of the poorest and nutritionally-insecure regions in the country, with a 25 percent childhood stunting rate. A key project focus is on supporting smallholders to farm fish as part of profit-oriented agribusinesses, in parallel with improving input supply and market linkages.

Timor-Leste ranks amongst the world’s poorest countries and faces multiple challenges in feeding its people and developing its economy. The fisheries and aquaculture sectors currently fall well short of their potential to contribute to improving livelihoods and food security. There is significant potential to improve food security through the promotion of sustainable marine resource use. This project aims to improve food and nutrition security, productivity and resilience of fisheries systems and community livelihoods in coastal areas of Timor-Leste.

The African Union Policy Framework and Reform Strategy for Fisheries and Aquaculture in Africa prioritizes fish trade and aims to promote responsible and equitable fish trade. In response, this European Union-funded project supports the development of intra-regional fish trade in Africa by conducting research and generating data that informs crucial policy decisions.

This project aims to improve food and nutrition security, incomes and health for the poorest households in Zambia’s Northern Province, with a particular focus on women. Through the generation of evidence, the project seeks to identify agricultural technologies and livelihood-enhancing solutions that can create economic growth and greater food productivity. It will also focus on utilizing newly developed biofortified food crops, fish and forest foods to improve nutrition.

Hilsa (Tenualosa ilisha) is an valuable resource for millions of people in the Bay of Bengal, but its breeding and migratory habits remain largely unknown. Identifying the breeding sites and main inland migration routes of hilsa is important for management and the sustainability of the resource. The project fills a knowledge gap about hilsa and undertakes the identification of the main spawning grounds in the Ayeyarwady Delta and determines the extent of its migration along the Ayeyarwady River.

Egypt has a well-established aquaculture industry that has the potential to have a greater impact on the country’s persistently high unemployment and endemic poverty rates through greater efficiencies and productivity. Aquaculture in Egypt now provides more than 100,000 full or part‐time jobs along the value chain and supports the livelihoods of up to one million people.

The Improving Food Security and Livelihoods of Poor Farming Households (IFSL) project aims to assist 180,000 smallholder farmers in Bangladesh by improving access to appropriate technical advice and affordable inputs as well as business and marketing support. The project builds on the proven concept of Local Service Providers (LSPs). LSPs are lead farmers who live in communities close to farmers and are selected by target communities and other stakeholders to become their advisors and provide marketing support.

This project aims to use selective breeding to make improved fish strains, which are faster growing and more productive than other local strains, more accessible to poor people. The project focuses on Bangladesh, Egypt, Kenya and Mozambique, where small-scale aquaculture is important for rural livelihoods and fish is an important source of protein and nutrition.

The goal of this project is to ensure the environmental sustainability of Indonesia’s aquaculture development while increasing production yet recognizing both socioeconomic and climate change factors.

Method

Malnutrition levels in Bangladesh are among the highest in the world. Dietary intake of both adults and children are severely deficient in key micronutrients. This project aims to increase household income in poor, rural households in Bangladesh, and improve nutrition, especially in women and children, through increased intake of nutrient-rich small fish. The project promotes innovative new technologies designed to increase the production of small nutrient-rich fish species in two separate and environmentally distinct agricultural areas.

The seas between Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Timor-Leste, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands constitute some of the most biologically diverse waters in the world. However, the area’s ecosystems, especially the Sulu-Sulawesi Marine Ecoregion (SSME), are under intense pressure from overfishing, population pressure and pollution. The Coastal and Marine Resources Management in the Coral Triangle project seeks to develop a monitoring, control and surveillance system for coral reef fish to protect them from overfishing and illegal reef fishing.

Small-scale and commercial aquaculture is growing in Bangladesh and has tremendous potential to increase both food security and incomes. This project focuses on implementing market development interventions for the farmed fish sector in Bangladesh by targeting improvements in fish feed production. The project aims to build capacity in commercial feed companies, focusing on product quality, formulation and improvements to process management as well as machine operation, alternative energy sources, alternative raw materials, software operation, and improvements in the supply chain.

In the ‘low income, food deficit’ countries of India, Bangladesh and Malawi, aquaculture is a key source of food and income for resource-poor people in rural and urban areas. Yet growth of the small-scale aquaculture sector is limited by fish disease. This project brings together farmers, aquatic health professionals, researchers and national authorities to combat this problem, by developing and applying modern molecular methods for use as early warning tools.

There are more than four million small household ponds in Bangladesh that have the potential to be significant sources of food and income for local farmers, especially women. This ecologically-focused project aims to increase household access to fish for nutrition and income by diversifying ecosystems in shaded household ponds. It works with 60 women who act as researchers utilizing their household ponds.

Sustainably improving nutrition outcomes and building food sovereignty is fundamental to the nation-building processes of Timor-Leste. As a small island state, coastal and ocean resources have the potential to contribute to this objective in a more significant way than they currently do.

As part of wider European Union-funded project to improve food security for the people of Cambodia, this project focuses on the fisheries and livestock sectors and aims to promote inclusive and sustainable growth in aquaculture and fisheries for the poor. This important subcomponent of the program seeks to develop and modernize the fisheries sector, improve productivity and efficiency in aquaculture, look at ways of enhancing the value chain for the benefit of communities and reinforce Cambodian fisheries administration management capacities.

The MYFC project aims to introduce low cost polyculture systems with small indigenous species of fish to increase incomes, food security and nutrition for the resource-poor, focusing on women and children. WorldFish will work with four government and NGO partners to build technical capacity through the Fisheries Research and Development Network. The project will target four townships in Ayeyarwady Delta and four townships in the central dry zone.

In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan devastated large areas of the Philippines, destroying vital sources of livelihoods for many rural households. This project aims to rebuild livelihoods through cash grants for fishers to help them to revive the aquaculture and sea fisheries sectors in the worst affected areas of Eastern Samar and Leyte. Specifically, the project seeks to rebuild mud crab, blue crab, milkfish and tilapia aquaculture as well as seaweed farming within local communities and assist with links to potential markets for the produce.

The dual-objective project, funded and conducted in collaboration with FAO, first focuses on reviewing current approaches and outcomes that have been facilitated through co-management governance strategies in Asia. Substantial investments have been made in co-management of small-scale fisheries (SSFs), and in the first activity we will review co-management in the region using peer reviewed and grey literature.

Climate change, damage to valuable ecosystems and overfishing are creating challenges for the people of the Pacific islands. In this project, WorldFish and the Australian Center for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) aim to promote greater food security through a national program of marine resource management for the worst affected communities in Solomon Islands and to expand this to Kiribati and Vanuatu.

In Bangladesh, much of the rural population depends on agriculture and aquaculture for food, nutrition and income. However, many areas in southern and northeastern Bangladesh are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, including salt-water intrusion, increased frequency of flooding, waterlogging and vulnerability to cyclones.

In the small island developing states of the Pacific, catching, trading and eating fish are central to the way of life and local and national economies. Local and external pressures on marine resources, and high reliance on fisheries as a livelihood, mean that improving and sustaining fisheries benefits is a key pathway to improve human wellbeing and contribute to food and nutrition security. This project aims to improve the wellbeing of Pacific coastal communities through more resilient fisheries as a foundation.

In the Lau and Langalanga lagoons in Malaita province, Solomon Islands, the ‘saltwater people’ live on small artificial islands on top of coral reefs and mangroves, barter marine resources for root crops and vegetables, and have limited access to land. But the reef fisheries they depend on are threatened by overexploitation, climate change and changing consumption patterns. This project aims to safeguard the food security of these vulnerable communities.

Since 2007, WorldFish has been working with the farmers of the Aceh region of Indonesia and has now launched a project to develop shrimp farming and improve the livelihoods of some of the area’s poorest farmers. Working with the Aceh Aquaculture Cooperative (AAC), the aim is to lend technical and financial support to promote sustainable and responsible shrimp farming.

The Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT) program is funded by the African Development Bank (AfDB) and other agencies. The aquaculture compact is one of 15 compacts comprising TAAT led by WorldFish.