Following a couple of postponements due to Covid-19, over 700 participants have registered for both conference and exhibition visits, with over 70 percent being Africans.
Delegates include government representatives, researchers, academics, consultants, private sector operators, farmers, exhibitors and development partners interested or active in African aquaculture. The exhibition space is now fully booked with over 50 international exhibitors expected to pitch their stands in the Bibliotheca Alexandrina.
In addition to the conference oral and poster presentation sessions, several organizations from Africa and beyond have booked special technical sessions, seminars, meetings — and several are sponsoring groups of people to attend AFRAQ21. The conference theme is “Sustainable Aquaculture – Feeding Africa”.
Attendees must be vaccinated against Covid-19, while rapid antigen Covid-19 tests will be conducted on the first day for all those entering the convention centre. Click here for more information on Covid-19 protocols.
The Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation in Egypt is expected to grace the official opening ceremony of the conference including the opening of the exhibition, scheduled for 26 March. Other important dignitaries expected to give opening remarks include the Governor of Alexandria, General Authority for Fish Resources Development (GAFRD), Africa Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD), Agricultural Research Centre, Egypt and WorldFish.
WAS president, Dr Antonio Garza, is expected to be present throughout the conference, while the plenary talk on the Status of Aquaculture in Egypt, will be dleivered by world renowned Professor Abdel-Fatah El-Sayed from the University of Alexandria, Egypt.
“I believe the array of technical sessions resonates well with the conference theme: ‘Sustainable Aquaculture-Feeding Africa’. I can see sessions on aquatic animal health, feeds and nutrition and environmental management in sync with the conference theme and being among some of the hot topics on aquaculture development in Africa today. Other sessions such as the finance/investment session, education/training and socio-economics are equally important to the journey on sustainable aquaculture in Africa. We are looking forward to the presentations, and to learn lessons from each other out of these sessions,” said Dr Sherif Sadek, WAS-AC president and also conference co-chair.
The second Aquaculture Africa Conference is planned for the later part of 2023 in Zambia, while the third is scheduled for Ghana in 2024.
