The United States Agency for International Development has awarded $24 million to the Coastal Resources Center at URI’s Graduate School of Oceanography to lead a five-year sustainable fisheries project in Ghana, West Africa. The grant is the largest in URI history. The project is expected to benefit 100,000 people involved in the local fishing industry by ending overfishing and rebuilding key marine fisheries stocks. The project will include efforts to reduce child labor and trafficking.

“This will be a very challenging and ambitious project. If successful, our work with the Ghana Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development will reverse the trend in declining fish catches,” said Brian Crawford M.A. ’86, PhD. ’09, who will move to Accra, Ghana, to lead the project for URI. “With improved management, tens of thousands of metric tons of high-quality, low-cost fish protein supply can be recovered, benefiting not only tens of thousands of fishermen and women processors, but improving food security for millions of people in Ghana and its neighbors in West Africa.”

Crawford will work with a consortium of international and local partners, and help the University of Cape Coast, Ghana to improve its applied research and extension services in coastal and fisheries management.