WORLD BANK COMMENDS ZAMBIA ON AQUACULTURE

By Lumbiwe Mwanza

Zambia has so far done well in growing the aquaculture value chain although sector players still have little information on the available market, World Bank Global Director for Environment, Natural Resources and Blue Economy Global Practice Ms. Valerie Hickey has observed.

Ms. Hickey recently paid a courtesy call on Minister of Small and Medium Enterprise Development Elias Mubanga and expressed the World Bank’s interest to develop Zambia’s aquaculture value chain sector.

She explained that the World Bank was ready to support the Ministry in ensuring Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in aquaculture to ensure that they were equipped with market information, capacity building on how best they could grow their production and meet the demand on the market.

She noted that SMEs in Aquaculture had a challenge in accessing financing from Commercial Banks as most financial institutions still had high lending rates for loans.

She added that the World Bank was also ready to work with SMEs in the tourism sector and cooperatives in the communities by providing technical assistance and funds that would enable them to build sustainable businesses.

“The World Bank would want to know areas in which it could collaborate with the Ministry of SMEs in providing support to develop aquaculture not only for food security, but as a thriving business sector creating jobs and contributing to economic development. The World bank is interested in seeing the Zambian aquaculture value chain sector flourish,” Ms. Hickey said.

And Minister of Small and Medium Enterprise Development Elias Mubanga said that the coming of the World Bank to his ministry would boost delivery of services to the people and spur interest in SMEs to venture into aquaculture and tourism especially in areas that remained untapped.

He thanked the World Bank for coming through the Ministry to discuss support to SMEs in aquaculture value chains in Zambia.

He further reaffirmed Government’s commitment in undertaking various steps towards ensuring proper coordination of interventions to support the growth of SMEs and cooperatives.

He explained that a number of interventions had been embarked on to ensure SMEs and cooperatives formalized their businesses as they held a larger share in job creation and reduction of poverty at household levels.