The FISH CRP has been featured in the UN COP25 Climakers collection of stories from the field
The FISH CRP has been featured in the UN COP25 Climakers collection of stories from the field. Explore the full publication here
Enhancing the contributions of aquaculture and fisheriesto reduce poverty and improve food security and nutrition
Highlights
FISH Annual Report 2018 is now available!
As we look back over our second year as a program, new and critical understanding of fish in agri-food systems is clearly emerging from our work. This is reshaping traditional views about responses to the challenges posed by undernutrition, climate change and the growing global demand for...
Emerging scientist: Danika Kleiber
In the latest instalment of our emerging scientist series, Research Fellow Danika Kleiber tells us why she's excited about her collaborative work with gender and fisheries researchers to develop capacity and capability indicators for national fisheries agencies – and how these will help to integrate gender in fisheries management and research.
Putting fish ‘back on the plate’ in nutrition debate
An interview with Eddie Allison, WorldFish Honorary Fellow Research published recently in Nature showed that, in many developing countries, local fish species are rich in the same micronutrients that are missing from local diets. We spoke with WorldFish Honorary Fellow Eddie Allison, a co-author of...
World Seafood Congress: WorldFish Parallel Session
On the second day of the World Seafood Congress, 10 September 2019, Tuesday, the Multi-regional perspectives for delivering the Sustainable Development Goals s ession will be chaired and organized by WorldFish, an international non-profit research organization working in Africa, Asia and the...
The cool women of Malaita
In the Solomon Islands, an archipelago of almost 1000 islands, fishing provides an income for 30 percent of the population. Improving the way people catch, process or trade fish is a critical pathway for rural development in coastal communities. “In very remote villages, opportunities for earning...
Going to market with low-cost, fish-based innovations
Poverty, vulnerability and inequality persist in many sectors of Pacific Island society. But development investments often deliver ‘white elephants’—costly and poorly integrated infrastructure that is left unused. In coastal communities in Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste, we are helping to strengthen people’s own inventive solutions or build on their existing assets to enhance fish-based livelihoods.
What we do
Fisheries and aquaculture contribute to livelihoods for 800 million people and provide 3.2 billion people with 20 percent of their animal protein. Fish is a rich source of micronutrients and essential fatty acids, which are critical to cognitive and physical development. In low-income and food-deficit countries, fish is often the cheapest and most accessible animal-source food.
To meet future demand for fish, particularly in developing countries, production will need to double by 2030. The scale of this challenge requires research innovations across the whole spectrum of aquaculture and fisheries production systems and value chains.
In collaboration with national governments and partners, the CGIAR Research Program on Fish Agri-Food Systems (FISH) leads research to enhance sustainability, productivity and access to fish by those most in need.
Research Areas
A fish agri-food system is an interconnected and interdependent system involving components of fish production, through to processing, marketing and consumption. The CGIAR Research Program on Fish Agri-Food Systems (FISH) aims to enhance the sustainability, productivity and resilience of fish agri-food systems to reduce poverty, enhance food and nutrition security, and improve natural resource systems.
The overarching research question for the program is: How can we optimize the contributions of aquaculture and small-scale fisheries to reduce poverty and improve food and nutrition security, while enhancing environmental sustainability? Research is focused on the two interlinked challenges of sustainable aquaculture and sustaining small-scale fisheries, with integrated crosscutting themes of gender, youth, capacity development and climate change.
Research Areas
Cross Cutting Themes
Where we work
FISH pursues an integrated body of research in six focal countries. Three are in Asia (Bangladesh, Cambodia and Myanmar) and three are in Africa (Nigeria, Tanzania and Zambia). In addition, the program focuses on Egypt as a research hub and training center for our aquaculture capacity development in Africa, and Solomon Islands as a hub for our learning networks on small-scale governance in the Pacific.
Successes and lessons learned from research will be scaled to achieve impact and expanded to Ghana, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Philippines, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Timor-Leste and Vietnam.
Latest Research Projects
OngoingIDEA: Income, Diets and Empowerment through Aquaculture
IDEA: Income, Diets and Empowerment through Aquaculture project aims to enhance the incomes, diets and nutrition of smallholder families. The project embeds proven technologies in Bangladesh by harnessing public and private sector products and services to increase the productivity of smallholder...
OngoingTechnologies for African Agriculture Transformation (TAAT)
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. Ten countries were selected for the TAAT Aquaculture Compact (TAC): the...
OngoingAquaculture Technical, Vocational and Entrepreneurship Training for Improved Private Sector and Smallholder Skills Project in Zambia
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...