Rafael V. Ramiscal
Annex 7 KEYNOTE ADDRESS
Fisheries and ASEAN Community Building by Mr. Suriyan Vichitlekarn
Assistant Director and Head of Agriculture Industries and Natural Resources Division, ASEAN Secretariat
Plenary I
ASEAN-SEAFDEC Conference on Sustainable Fisheries for Food Security Towards 2020
“Fish for the People 2020: Adaptation to a Changing Environment”
Fisheries and Development
“In water there is fish, in paddy there is rice”, a traditional saying spoken in Thailand and other countries in Southeast Asia signifies the richness of natural resources and the importance of agriculture, particularly fisheries in the region over the past centuries. It underscored how fish and fisheries have been lifelines and part of puzzle of societies and development processes in the region up to the present.
Due to fast growing demand for fish and fish products and advancement of technology, fisheries have over the last five decades contributed to socio-economic development of countries in Southeast Asia. Its contribution in term of livelihoods and food security, employment, foreign earning and related industrial development has been well recognized.
Issue and Challenges Facing the Fisheries Sector
The above development comes with prices not only in terms of declining of and conflicts over utilization of natural resources but also concerns over its long-term contribution to local food security, livelihoods and the overall national socio-economic development.
According to the World Bank, the world’s population will increase from 6.1 billion people in 2009 to 9 billion people in 2050. Coupled with new fast emerging markets such as China and India as well as changes in consumption patterns from starch-based food to more nutritious food, quality protein intake, and variety of processed food products, there will be a drastic increase in pressure to natural resource based and higher demand for agri-food products, including fish and fish products. More stringent requirements of their international trade (i.e. safety, quality and sustainability aspects) will add complication to the fisheries sector in coping with these challenges.
In addition, concerns over spatial and temporal food insecurity situations will increase their likelihood. This will be more vulnerable in the rural areas, particularly where staple food has already been concerns. Access to resource use in fisheries, multiple water resource use conflicts, illegal and unsustainable practices and extreme climate events need to be fully recognized and addressed in ensuring that the sector will continue to provide livelihoods to the people and support stable supplies of fish and fish products to related industries.
This has called for the fisheries sector to revisit the sectoral policy and development as well as regional cooperation in order to identify strategies and approaches to be undertaken at local, national and regional levels to cope up with the fast changing situation and development context.
ASEAN Community Building
Established in 1967, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has ten Member States, namely Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Since the establishment, ASEAN has been working towards maintaining and enhancing peace, security and stability for a caring, prosperous and competitive regional community through greater political, security, economic and socio-cultural cooperation. It recognizes the need for alleviating poverty and narrowing the development gap within the region, promoting sustainable development, and enhancing the well-being and livelihood of the peoples of ASEAN. This would be ensured through equitable access to opportunities for human development, social welfare and justice; promoting a people-oriented ASEAN in which all sectors of
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society are encouraged to participate in, and benefit from, the process of ASEAN integration and community building.
In pursuing the above vision and inspiration, the Leaders of ASEAN Member States have endeavored to realize an ASEAN Community by 2015. In 2007, ASEAN Leaders signed the ASEAN Charter, which transforms ASEAN from a loose association to a rule-based intergovernmental organization. The ASEAN Charter reaffirms the goal of working towards an ASEAN Community by 2015, comprising three pillars, namely:
ASEAN Security Community (ASC), ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), and ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC). Each Community has a Blueprint, providing a strategic framework of measures, actions, scheduling of activities in realizing goals of the ASEAN Community.
During the 14th ASEAN Summit held in 2009, the Leaders signed the Cha-am Hua Hin Declaration on the Roadmap for the ASEAN Community (2009-2015), comprising three pillars: Political Security Community, Economic Community, and Socio Cultural Community. Each ASEAN Member State shall ensure its timely implementation. The Leaders also tasked the ASEAN Sectoral Ministerial Bodies, among others, the fisheries sector, and the Secretary General of ASEAN to explore ways and means as well as long term strategy to mobilize resources from Member States, Dialogue and Sectoral Dialogue Partners, and other external parties to implement the Declaration.
Noting from the above ASEAN’s vision and inspiration, development of fisheries sector towards an ASEAN Community could be seen as a regional important stepping stone along the pathways of enhancing competitiveness, economic integration, sustainable development and achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
It is therefore important for the fisheries sector to set course of future development to articulate various objectives, contributing to ASEAN Community building process.
Contribution of Fisheries Sector in the Realization of an ASEAN Community
Considering the multi-dimensional role and importance of the fisheries sector cutting cross three pillars of an ASEAN Community, it is inevitable to involve relevant stakeholders (i.e. government, private sector along the value chains, fishers and civil society) in “Setting Course of Actions towards an ASEAN Community”. It is important for relevant stakeholders to understand ASEAN’s vision and goals and identify how to ensure synergies and complementarities of efforts promoted by the ASEAN and various partners.
In so doing, the fisheries sector needs to base its policy and development on accurate and timely information and mobilization of scientific and indigenous knowledge where various stakeholders form part of decision- making process and contribute to collaborative efforts in areas of their comparative advantages. Good governance within the sector and in the context of multi-sectoral approaches to development will be the bedrock of the development set-up. Multi-dimensional aspects of fisheries development, namely economic, social and ecosystem should be well-balanced. Effective management framework for fisheries should be in place at the national level with support through regional cooperation where there are issues of common concerns and those of transboundary in nature.
In term of market and trade of fish and fish products, efforts should be exerted in developing harmonized standards as well as quarantine and inspection procedures so as to facilitate cross-border trade for intra- and extra-ASEAN trade. Trade facilitation initiatives such as good agricultural practices (GAP) in the fisheries sector, recognition and certification systems and other branding initiatives should be supported.
Competitiveness of the fisheries sector, particularly the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) by ways of improving productivity and meeting trade requirements (i.e. safety, quality and sustainability) should form integral part of economic development and integration. This should be coupled with active engagement in international and regional trade negotiations to safeguard the sectoral interests and uniqueness in the region.
In supporting the fisheries communities through enhanced community organization and empowerment will allow self-help and enhance their bargaining power and access to market as well as improve food security and livelihoods of their members and active engagement in decision making process, including management of natural resources.
In addressing emerging issues such as impacts of climate change, consideration should be made in understanding potential impacts on economic (yields and losses), social (fisher safety and livelihoods) and
ecosystem (well-being and ecological services) aspects. Development and sharing of climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies in the fisheries sector should be encouraged.
Concluding Notes
It is important to recognize that achieving sustainable development of fisheries could neither be ensured solely by certain stakeholders nor a country. Common understanding of among various stakeholders on issues and challenges faced by the sector and cooperative development and management of the sector based on their comparative advantage will provide a firm ground for progressive development. Strategic cooperation and partnership with Dialogue Partners and international/regional organizations (i.e. FAO, SEAFDEC, the Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia-Pacific (NACA), the WorldFish Center, the Mekong River Commission, etc.) should continued to be pursued.
The ASEAN-SEAFDEC Conference on Sustainable Fisheries for Food Security Towards 2020: “Fish for the People 2020” – Adaptation to A Changing Environment to be held on 13-17 June 2011 in Bangkok will provide this platform of partnership that sets joint vision and aspiration as well as defines concrete cooperative actions to achieve “Fish for the People”. The impacts could be the sector‘s sustainable development as well as its contribution to attaining the MDGs through the ASEAN Community building process.
Annex 8