Blue economy & aquaculture in Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Blue economy & aquaculture

The DRC has a 37-kilometre Atlantic frontage at Muanda and a much larger inland-water economy along the Congo River, Lake Tanganyika, Lake Kivu, Lake Albert and Lake Edward. Marine fisheries are small in absolute terms — tens of thousands of tonnes annually — and dominated by artisanal operations out of Banana and Muanda. Inland fisheries are larger and more economically significant; Lake Tanganyika alone supports hundreds of thousands of fishers across four riparian states, with the dagaa and Stolothrissa pelagic fisheries the commercial anchor. There is no commercial-scale aquaculture sector. Ports are constrained — Matadi handles most of the country's container traffic up the Congo River, with the deepwater Banana port project under development — and the maritime professional services ecosystem is thin compared with neighbouring Angola or Congo-Brazzaville.

The Norwegian-Africa fisheries footprint in the DRC is not significant and we do not see a near-term commercial blue-economy play here for a Norwegian principal. Where Norwegian capability is relevant is around inland-water surveillance and management — Lake Tanganyika regional cooperation, lake-monitoring telemetry, and the institutional capacity-building work that Norwegian fisheries advisers have done elsewhere on the continent through Fish for Development. That is a development-finance conversation, not a commercial one, and we treat it accordingly.