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Tilapia Centre of Excellence
Tilapia Centre of Excellence

+260 962 703 870

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About Us

Building the Future of Aquaculture in Southern Africa

The Tilapia Centre of Excellence is an African-led aquaculture development platform established to strengthen the science, skills, systems, and partnerships needed for a more productive and sustainable tilapia industry.

Based in Zambia and designed for regional impact, the Centre brings together applied research, professional training, fish health, genetics, climate-smart production, and inclusive value-chain development.

Our work responds directly to the practical challenges facing aquaculture in Zambia and across Southern Africa: limited access to quality fingerlings, weak technical capacity, disease risks, fragmented support systems, and the need for stronger links between research, policy, investment, and farm-level production.

We believe aquaculture can play a central role in improving food security, creating jobs, building rural enterprise, supporting youth and women, and reducing the region’s dependence on fish imports. To achieve this, the industry needs more than individual farms or isolated projects. It needs coordinated systems, reliable knowledge, strong institutions, quality seed, skilled people, and practical innovation.

That is the role of the Tilapia Centre of Excellence.

Our Purpose

Turning knowledge into practical solutions

Our purpose is to professionalise and transform aquaculture by connecting science with production, and by turning knowledge into practical solutions for farmers, institutions, investors, and communities.

We exist to help build an aquaculture sector that is more productive, more inclusive, more commercially viable, more resilient to climate and disease risks, more attractive to investment, and more capable of supporting national and regional food security.

The Centre serves as a bridge between research and industry, between public institutions and private enterprise, and between global aquaculture knowledge and African production realities.
Why We Were Created

Bringing the building blocks together

Tilapia farming has significant potential in Zambia and across Southern Africa, but the sector continues to face structural constraints that limit growth. Farmers often struggle to access consistent, high-quality fingerlings. Technical skills are uneven across the value chain. Disease prevention and fish health systems remain underdeveloped. Research is often disconnected from commercial production needs. Smallholder farmers, women, youth, and emerging enterprises require stronger support to participate meaningfully in the aquaculture economy.

The Tilapia Centre of Excellence was created to respond to these gaps through one integrated platform. Rather than addressing aquaculture challenges in isolation, we bring the key building blocks together: research, seed systems, training, fish health, sustainability, and inclusive value-chain development. This integrated approach allows us to support the industry from multiple angles while keeping the needs of farmers and the wider sector at the centre.
Our Integrated Platform Model

Six connected areas of work

The Tilapia Centre of Excellence is more than a training institution. It is a practical aquaculture platform designed to support the full development of the sector.
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Pillar 01
Applied Research & Innovation

Practical research that responds to real industry challenges and helps improve farm performance, productivity, and resilience.
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Pillar 02
Genetics & Quality Seed Systems

Reliable access to high-quality tilapia fingerlings through improved genetics, hatchery standards, and responsible seed systems.
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Pillar 03
Training & Capacity Development

Technical and professional skills for farmers, farm workers, students, technicians, extension officers, and industry leaders.
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Pillar 04
Fish Health, Welfare & Biosecurity

Stronger aquatic animal health systems through disease prevention, surveillance, diagnostics, biosecurity, welfare, and health management.
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Pillar 05
Climate-Smart & Sustainable Production

Ensuring aquaculture growth benefits smallholder farmers, women, youth, schools, communities, and emerging enterprises.
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Pillar 06
Inclusive Value Chains, Gender & Smallholder Impact

Women in processing, youth entrepreneurs and smallholders linked to finance and markets — tracked via the RBET framework.

Together, these areas create a coordinated platform for aquaculture transformation.

Our Approach

Practical, partnership-driven, grounded in African realities

We work with farmers, universities, government institutions, private companies, researchers, development partners, and communities to design solutions that are technically sound and commercially relevant.

We believe the best aquaculture solutions are developed where science, enterprise, and field experience meet. For this reason, our work combines research with demonstration, training with practical application, and strategic partnerships with measurable impact.

Our goal is not only to generate knowledge, but to make sure that knowledge reaches the people and institutions that need it most.
Zambia as a Starting Point

Anchored in Zambia, built for the region

Zambia is one of the most important aquaculture growth markets in Southern Africa. With its water resources, expanding fish demand, active private sector, government interest, and strategic location, Zambia provides a strong foundation for building a regional aquaculture development model.

The Tilapia Centre of Excellence is anchored in Zambia, but our vision extends beyond national borders. We see Zambia as the starting point for a wider Southern African aquaculture platform — one that can support knowledge exchange, seed systems, fish health, training, research, and inclusive commercial development across the region.

Our long-term ambition is to contribute to an African aquaculture sector that is globally competitive, locally relevant, and capable of delivering lasting food-security and economic-development outcomes.
Vision & Mission

Our Vision

To become Southern Africa’s leading aquaculture centre of excellence, driving innovation, skills development, quality seed systems, fish health, sustainability, and inclusive industry growth.

Our Mission

To strengthen aquaculture in Zambia and Southern Africa by connecting applied research, practical training, fish health systems, quality seed development, climate-smart production, and inclusive value-chain support into one integrated platform.

Our Commitment

Science-based, practical, responsible, inclusive

We are committed to building an aquaculture industry that is science-based, commercially practical, environmentally responsible, and socially inclusive. This means supporting better production systems, stronger farmer capacity, healthier fish, improved genetics, responsible resource use, and wider participation across the value chain.

We are also committed to collaboration. Aquaculture transformation cannot be achieved by one organisation alone. It requires farmers, researchers, investors, government institutions, development partners, and private companies working together around a shared vision. The Tilapia Centre of Excellence exists to help coordinate that vision and turn it into action.
What We Stand For

Our values

Practical Science

To become Southern Africa’s leading aquaculture centre of excellence, driving innovation, skills development, quality seed systems, fish health, sustainability, and inclusive industry growth.

African Leadership

Africa must lead the development of aquaculture systems that respond to its own markets, environments, communities, and opportunities.

Inclusion

Aquaculture growth must create opportunities for smallholder farmers, women, youth, schools, and emerging enterprises.

Sustainability

Fish production must grow in a way that protects water, land, biodiversity, and long-term natural resource health.

Partnership

Meaningful transformation requires collaboration between public institutions, private enterprise, academia, communities, and development partners.

Inclusion

Aquaculture must be professional, data-driven, well-managed, and capable of competing at regional and global levels.

Looking Ahead

A platform for the future of African aquaculture

The Tilapia Centre of Excellence is building the systems needed for the next phase of aquaculture growth in Southern Africa. Through our integrated platform, we aim to support stronger farms, better-trained people, healthier fish, more reliable seed, improved sustainability, and wider participation in the aquaculture economy.

Our work begins in Zambia, but our ambition is regional. We are building a platform for the future of African aquaculture — practical, inclusive, science-led, and ready for scale.
Get Involved

Ready to Partner With Tilapia Centre?

Farmers, investors, governments, NGOs, and development partners — we welcome all forms of collaboration to advance aquaculture across Southern Africa.

    We aim to respond within three working days.