Liberia: US$2M Loan Facility for ‘Women Fishmongers’

The National Fisheries and Aquaculture Authority (NaFAA) has signed a US$2 million loan facility agreement with Conservation International (CI) to empower women in the fisheries sector of Liberia.

Women fishmongers remain the economic engine for the artisanal fisheries sector, as they are the medium through which the fishermen get revenue from their catches of fish supplied to the market. 

However, women face post-harvest losses due to factors such as lack of access to appropriate technology, preservation tools, and storage facilities, among others.  The nature of women’s businesses in the fishing or related sectors—which are usually informal and small —makes women-owned businesses less attractive to commercial banks.

NaFAA Director General, Emma Glassco, said during the signing ceremony that the loan facility is meant to find a solution to address these issues facing women in the fisheries sector.

She said that women's empowerment is an integral part of nation building and development. 

“Empowering a woman will have a greater impact on both the socioeconomic and economic development of the family,” she said. 

According to her, in order to transition Liberian fisheries from artisanal to semi industrial, the need to invest in women's entrepreneurship development cannot be over-emphasized. 

“This project is a very significant step in addressing this socio-economic problem affecting women in fisheries. The project is expected to provide financial support to women-owned businesses and also provide a mix of soft and hard skills training, such as supporting informal businesses with formal registrations, negotiation skills, leadership training, and innovative initiative,” she explained.

She mentioned that it will aid in the process of reducing post-harvest loss, introduce new fish handling and processing techniques in order to ensure their businesses can generate profits and remain sustainable. 

“It is expected to engage financial institutions to target women entrepreneurs as a viable market and enhance their financial products offering through hands-on financial literacy, business management training for women-owned small and medium enterprises.

She assured the fishing community of continued mobilization of support to all players in the fisheries sector to ensure economic growth. 

“This project is the achievement of a milestone in fulfillment of the Pro-Poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development Pillar 2, which emphasizes the maintenance of macroeconomic stability, building good infrastructure, and providing a business-friendly environment that can stimulate private productive investments and create more and better-quality jobs that are germane to sustaining the peace and to future economic growth,” she explained.

The NaFAA boss said that her administration remains committed to the agenda of the PAPD, especially in transforming the lives of our ordinary fisher folks. 

She expressed the explicit confidence that the Conservation International will do its best in implementing the loan program.

“Considering the quality of work being implemented by CI around the world, we have explicit confidence that they will implement this project with the highest degree of professionalism,” she said.

She said that thousands of women fishmongers in the coastal counties would benefit from the loan to improve their fishing businesses.

“We remain grateful to our partners, especially the World Bank for their support to this initiative. As we signed today, we will still need the technical assistance from the World Bank to ensure that the technical details of the project are developed in line with the project technical document and all key performance indicators are achieved. The Bank’s technical oversight has been very significant and we look forward to continuing this relationship,” she said.

In other remarks, Suzanne Ngo-Eyok, Senior Vice President for Africa, Conservation International, said that giving women the opportunity to invest in their businesses in the fisheries sector will have less drain on the forest resources.

“Everybody knows that women are the custodians of tradition for livelihoods. Giving them the opportunity to invest in the fisheries sector means they will have less drain on the natural resources. This is why our institution is pleased to partner with the fisheries authorities to improve the lives of women in the fisheries sector,” she said.

Also speaking, a representative of the World Bank, Fisseha Tessema, described the signing ceremony as one of the milestones of the fisheries sector.

He said that the agreement is the way forward to making Liberia move from artisanal fisheries to semi industrial. 

“Women are most important in the fisheries sector. If a nation would like to transition from small scale fishing, we have to work in empowering women. This signing ceremony is therefore a confirmation that we are ready to transform the fisheries sector,” he said. 

The agreement was signed yesterday in Monrovia witnessed by representatives of the World Bank and the Liberian government. It is under the World Bank financed “Liberia Sustainable Management for Fisheries Project”, which is geared toward transforming the fisheries sector.