Rohana Subasinghe

Aquaculture Development & Aquatic Animal Health Management Specialist at FUTUREFISH

Rohana Subasinghe is a specialist in aquaculture development and aquatic animal health management. After 22 years of service, he retired from FAO in October 2015, while serving as the Chief of the Aquaculture Branch. He was responsible in implementing many programmes and projects on aquaculture and aquatic animal health at national, regional and international levels, worldwide. Among others, at FAO, he was also responsible for analysing global trends in aquaculture development. For fifteen years, he served as the Technical Secretary to the Sub-Committee on Aquaculture of the Committee on Fisheries of the FAO, the only global inter-governmental forum on aquaculture which meets every two years.

A former teacher of the University of Colombo and the Universiti Putra Malaysia, Rohana earned his PhD from Stirling University. Rohana is a founder member and former Chair Person of the Fish Health Section of the Asian Fisheries Society, He is a honorary life member of the World Aquaculture Society (WAS) and is the Past President of the Asia-Pacific Chapter of WAS.

Rohana is a strong advocate of sustainable, responsible and equitable aquaculture and improving its contribution to poverty alleviation and food and nutrition security. His passion is to increase fish consumption among rural poor, especially among childbearing women and young children, towards improving their health and wellbeing. Rohana is still active in the field of fisheries and aquaculture.

Currently he serves as the Technical Lead for the WorldFish programme in Nigeria, extending his years of experience and expertise worldwide.