The CGIAR Research Program on Fish Agri-food Systems (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 and Vietnam.

FISH chose these locations for the following reasons:

• The program prioritizes places with the largest anticipated shortfalls in fish supply (>100,000 metric tons) and where aquaculture is expected to grow at >5%, enabling us to build on existing partnerships to deliver research outputs and impacts that reduce the supply gap.
• The program focuses on countries where growth in aquaculture production is projected to exceed 1 million metric tons per annum by 2030 and generate a significant surplus of supply over domestic demand.
• The program works where strong government support and good research infrastructure enable the development of genetically improved varieties of tilapia and carp.
• In the small-scale fisheries sector, the program works where the largest number of poor people depend on fish sourced from small-scale fisheries for food and income, and where the enabling environment is strong enough for FISH to have national-level impacts.

FISH believes these criteria enable good site selection and increase the likelihood of development impact at scale.