World Aquaculture Magazine - September 2021

WWW.WA S .ORG • WORLD AQUACULTURE • SEP TEMBER 2021 15 C H A P T E R R E P O R T S J ust over two years ago, we announced the planning of the first Aquaculture Africa Conference (AFRAQ21), which was to take place in 2020 in Egypt, but had to be rescheduled to December 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Everyone has been anxiously waiting for this momentous event. And thanks to the Egyptian government, who have now granted the necessary permission for WAS to proceed in organizing the conference as an in-person event on 11-14 December 2021 in Alexandria City. Time is very short, but I am indebted to the WAS conference management and the Steering and Organizing Committees that I am working with to get things done the best we can. Over the past months, Egypt has begun witnessing an upward trend in tourist arrivals, which is a good sign. The country’s COVID-19 vaccination rates are also gradually increasing and the general outlook is that the situation will get better as we move to months ahead. The convention center in Alexandria City where the event will be held, Bibliotheca Alexandrina, has promised to implement standard COVID-19 health and safety protocols within the venue. They have already held some successful large-scale events over the past months and are confident of hosting us safely. Of course, we will continue to monitor the situation as the days go by. And we keep encouraging international conference attendees to get vaccinated to safely enter Egypt. If not vaccinated, then one needs to present a negative PCR test on entry. We are very busy with many last-minute runs to get all logistics and other formalities in place. Thanks to our exhibitors, much of the exhibition space, with a target of 70 booths, is almost taken up. Registrations are gradually picking up now and we are targeting up to 700 participants, with the largest portion being from Egypt, of course. We are indebted to traditional WAS conference sponsors, who keep backing us, but also to new sponsors, who are coming on board, including our invaluable partner, Aller Aqua, AFRAQ21’s Gold Sponsor. The ProgramCommittee is working hard behind the scenes to sort out program sessions, abstracts, panelists and presenters. We are still calling for more participants to register through the various promotional drive initiatives we have implemented. I am also busy engaging with aquaculture organizations and institutions close to Alexandria City for some post-conference tours. As a standard norm for all WAS events, we expect to have some special workshops and student activities to spice up the conference. Be sure to keep visiting the AFRAQ21 website for more ( www.was.org/meeting/ code/AFRAQ20). And remember to please pass the message around, we want as many of you to come to Egypt for this inaugural Aquaculture Africa 2021 Conference. Back to the sub-regions of WAS in Africa, activities keep going behind the scenes. For instance, we successfully held the First Hybrid Conference on Aquaculture inWest Africa in May 2021, which I highlighted in my previous column. The full conference report is now available online (peaceful-kowalevski-f9b403. netlify.app/Conference%20Report.pdf). On 27-29 August 2021, we also successfully held the First Regional Eastern Africa e-Conference on Aquaculture which was attended remotely by over 400 participants. These were largely aquaculture actors from East Africa, but also attendees from other parts of the world. It was a delight to see some of the key regional organizations such as the AU agencies (AUDA-NEPAD and AU-IBAR); Lake Victoria Fisheries Organization (LVFO), Lake Tanganyika Authority (LTA), World Aquatic Veterinary Medical Association (WAVMA) Africa and several others joining hands with us for this momentous event. Such large-scale, multi-session virtual events require time to prepare, but I am indebted to the WAS AC Regional Director for East Africa, Dr Nelly Isyagi, and her organizing team for a splendid job in getting this done. Conference details are available at www.aquaeaconf.org . We expect the conference report to be released in due course and I will share the link in my next column. Behind the scenes, free-access webinar sessions are continuing, including through our media and publicity partner, the Aquaculture Africa Magazine (AAM). A series of technical webinars are already lined up in the coming months for various aquaculture topics of interest, including focus sessions on African institutions delivering aquaculture or related programs and aquaculture country profile sessions. Make sure you don’t miss these. In August 2021, we launched a series of webinar sessions with our Founding Gold Sponsor, Aller Aqua. These are branded Aquafeeds for Africa by Aller Aqua and are focusing on addressing aquafeed value chains but also other aquaculture topics of interest to the targeted countries and regions. The free access webinars are open to all. More information is available at www.aller-aqua.com/ zm/news/2021/aller-aqua-sponsors-webinar-series-arranged-by-was- african-chapter. As I keep mentioning, these virtual activities and meetings are viewed as a prelude to AFRAQ21. I wish to announce that we have been recognized by some key organization that want to walk the journey with us. I recently signed some strategic MoUs with the World Aquatic Veterinary Medical Association (WAVMA) and the Uganda National Research Organization (NARO) for some joint activities in the future. We also signed a strategic agreement with the Egyptian Union of Fishermen Co-operatives (EUFC) that has expressed interest to assist us on some administrative matters for Egyptian participants attending AFRAQ21. These recent developments are a clear indicator that the African Chapter of WAS is indeed growing and we hope for even better things in the years ahead. Lastly, I reiterate, make sure you don’t forget to block the dates of 11-14 December 2021 to come to Alexandria City, Egypt where I hope to meet many of you for the AFRAQ21 Conference. Please continue to stay safe! — Sherif Sadek, President African Chapter