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Port Moresby, March 27, 2007
— IFC, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, recently sponsored an innovative training program for women in fisheries at Papua New Guinea’s National Fisheries College in Kavieng. The three-week course in adding-value to the seafood sector, which ended on March 16, 2007, was attended by 13 women from all over the country.
Managed through IFC Advisory Services for the Pacific—PEP-Pacific, the focus of the training program was to show how locally made chicken feed can benefit the seafood business. Working with copra waste from coconut oil production and fish waste from seafood processing, international tutors used a hands-on approach to show the women how to produce pellet chicken feed. They researched nutritionally balanced recipes and produced feed that included cassava, banana, and copra and seafood waste. The product was then tested at a local chicken farm, producing encouraging results. The tutors used the outcome of the tasks to explain the theories and processes of product development and value addition, including economic and commercial viability analysis.
The course was a follow-up on an initial IFC-sponsored program in 2004. Since then, the National Fisheries College has formally established “women in fisheries” and “fisheries business” programs, which will continue to offer the value-adding training courses each year.
According to Brenda Sainol, the National Fisheries College’s Women in Fisheries Program Leader, the course participants will continue to cooperate with NFC to offer a series of community-level workshops in selected venues throughout the country so that they can pass on their new knowledge and skills. The participants also committed to forming an association for women in the fisheries business to promote their interests and to coordinate fisheries and marine resource training more efficiently in Papua New Guinea.
About IFC
IFC, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, promotes open and competitive markets in developing countries. IFC supports sustainable private sector companies and other partners in generating productive jobs and delivering basic services, so that people have opportunities to escape poverty and improve their lives. Through FY06, IFC Financial Products has committed more than $56 billion in funding for private sector investments and mobilized an additional $25 billion in syndications for 3,531 companies in 140 developing countries. IFC Advisory Services and donor partners have provided more than $1 billion in program support to build small enterprises, to accelerate private participation in infrastructure, to improve the business enabling environment, to increase access to finance, and to strengthen environmental and social sustainability. For more information, please visit
www.ifc.org
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