Mkungula said this during the closing of the 2018 to 2024 AVCP Learning, Sustainability and Networking Workshop that took place at Bingu International Convention Centre in Lilongwe on Monday.

In his speech, Mkungula said his ministry is satisfied with the success of the AVCP, saying the project has contributed to the development of the fishing industry in the country.

“The AVCP has made tremendous progress and impact as it has achieved a number of targets of the project, some of which include providing capacity to our fish farmers and stakeholders in the value chain of the fishing sector, producing quality fingerings and fish in large quantities to ensure that we are producing enough fish,” he explained.

He further urged fish farmers and stakeholders to develop mechanisms that will sustain the project’s interventions and impact to realise more benefits of the project.

“Now that the project has ended, we are pleading with all the beneficiaries and stakeholders of the project to devise strategies that will help sustain the impact of the project.

“When a project phases out, we try as much as possible to replicate and scale up the intervention and impact to ensure that farmers are benefiting from the interventions and one of the mechanisms is by ensuring that extension services are still flowing in the households and communities,” he said.

He also said the ministry is aware and is responding to the challenges that the fishing industry has been facing by developing the aquaculture and procuring the necessary feed meals for fish production, among others.

On his part, representative of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, Knut Gummert, said realising the importance of fish in Malawi, the German Government commissioned GIZ to implement the AVCP.

“Since 2018, the German Government has worked closely with the Government of Malawi to improve access to affordable fish for Malawians but faced dwindling fish stock from Lake Malawi and other water bodies,” he said.

Gummert further highlighted the project’s notable achievements which he said include providing skills development to more than 4,500 aquaculture enterprises and creating more than 450 jobs along the value chain.

Also present at the workshop was the Principal Secretary for Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and Cooperatives in the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Francis Zhuwawo, who was also the guest of honour.

Zhuwawo said the ministry, as a partner in the project, will create a market to limit importation of fish in the markets to conserve forex.

The AVCP project, which commenced in 2018, finalized its operations in March 2024. It was funded by the German Government and implemented by GIZ.

(By Priscilla Phiri, Malawi News Agency)