Innovations for investment: financing small-scale fisheries in Thailand

Book excerpt: To make small-scale fisheries in Thailand more sustainable, fishers need to invest in responsible fishing operations and technologies, reduce overfishing, contribute to fisheries management, and implement climate change adaptation measures. Small-scale fishers often do not have access to financial services to innovate and to make the necessary transition to sustainable fishing operations. Access to financial services will help them to innovate and adopt measures that will provide social, economic and environmental returns, the desired triple bottom line. The Asia-Pacific Rural and Agricultural Credit Association (APRACA) and FAO, in collaboration with the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC), implemented a project to analyse and improve the access of small-scale fishers to financial services in Thailand.The project identified the key finance and fisheries sector stakeholders, carried out surveys and interviews and conducted a techno-economic performance analysis of some major fishing fleets, to investigate the potential innovations for investment in small-scale fisheries. APRACA and BAAC drafted training materials and conducted various trainings on financing small-scale fisheries. The project also supported the launch of a national network for stakeholders involved in financing the fishing sector in Thailand (ThaiNet SSF). This circular provides a summary of the project achievements.