Kenya is exploiting less than 13 per cent of its fisheries potential despite possessing vast maritime resources capable of transforming the economy, Head of The Oceans and Blue Economy in the Executive Office of the President Eric Aligula has said.
Speaking during a Radio Generation interview on Monday, Aligula said Kenya’s blue economy currently contributes only about 2 per cent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product despite the country having a massive Exclusive Economic Zone stretching between 243,000 and 245,000 square kilometres.
He said the country’s maritime resources remain largely untapped due to weak infrastructure, low investment, policy gaps and what he described as “sea blindness”.
“The office is a unit that was established in the Executive Office of the President in around 2020 with the sole purpose of providing policy advice to various departments of government on the commercialization of blue resources,” he noted. “We are advisory. We are not implementers. We are a very small unit and we engage with different stakeholders.”
Aligula explained that the blue economy goes beyond ocean resources and also includes inland waters, covering sectors such as fisheries, tourism, shipping, extractives and energy.
“Our total land mass is about 585,000 square kilometres. Our Exclusive Economic Zone is about 243,000 to 245,000 square kilometers,” he stressed, adding that this includes both terrestrial and maritime resources.
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He noted that the sector has enormous economic potential but remains underdeveloped despite Kenya being a coastal and maritime nation.
“When we talk about the blue economy, we are referring to both our ocean resources and inland waters,” he said. “There are 85 sectors and subsectors that comprise the blue economy.”
According to Aligula, coastal tourism and maritime trade remain among the biggest opportunities for the country, noting that nearly 90 per cent of Kenya’s imports and exports are transported through the sea.
He, however, said fisheries present one of the largest untapped opportunities, revealing that Kenya’s waters have an estimated fish biomass potential of about 300,000 metric tonnes.
“Our maritime waters have a potential of about 300,000 metric tons of fish biomass that we can exploit. We are exploiting less than 13% of that resource,” he noted.
Aligula raised concern over illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing in Kenyan waters, saying foreign vessels continue to benefit from local resources without proper monitoring.
“We have foreign entities catching fish in our waters and we are not aware of that,” he stated.
The blue economy official further pointed to opportunities in oil, gas, minerals, tidal energy and desalination, saying countries that have properly invested in blue resources derive between 10 and 20 per cent of their GDP from the sector.
He attributed Kenya’s poor performance to limited awareness and weak institutional focus on maritime resources.
“We are suffering from sea blindness in the sense that structures, policy frameworks and even the way people look at this resource has to change,” he stressed.
Aligula called for increased investment in maritime training and employment, citing the Philippines as one of the countries that has successfully built its economy through seafarer training and overseas employment opportunities.
He also pushed for the establishment of more local fish processing facilities to ensure the country benefits fully from its fisheries resources through value addition.
“If I catch fish for the country to benefit, you must bring it onshore. Once it gets there, then you begin value retention,” the official noted.
On maritime security, Aligula said Kenya has already put in place structures to improve surveillance and safeguard territorial waters through the Coast Guard Service working together with the Kenya Navy.
“The Coast Guard is responsible for policing within our territorial waters,” he said.
He concluded by urging stronger regional cooperation, policy reforms and increased investment to help Kenya and the wider African continent fully benefit from maritime resources and the growing blue economy sector.