The Fisheries Committee for the West Central Gulf of Guinea (FCWC), a regional fisheries body headquartered in Ghana, is partnering with the EAF-Nansen Programme of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) to organize a regional coordination meeting on sustainable management of the beach seine fisheries in the FCWC region from 5-6 June 2023, at the FCWC office in Tema, Ghana.
The meeting is being convened to review the current status of beach seine fisheries management, and determine ways to harmonize and coordinate fisheries management plans and measures to achieve regional coherence following last year’s signature of Letters of Agreement (LOAs) with three FCWC Member States (Côte d’Ivoire, Benin, and Togo) to continue support for management plan implementation.
Under a previous phase of the Nansen Programme (2006-2016), the development of fisheries management plans conform with an Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries was supported, and subsequently beach seine fisheries plans were implemented in Benin, Cote d’Ivoire and Togo. The workshop participants will assess the fisheries management achievements so far, challenges faced in implementation in those three countries and the FCWC subregion at large to develop the next steps.
Commenting ahead of the regional meeting, FCWC Secretary-General Dr Gaston Djihinto stated, “The FCWC is working to improve the use of scientific advice for fisheries management by strengthening fisheries research and data collection. Therefore, this workshop in partnership with the EAF-Nansen Programme of FAO, to determine the current context of beach seine management in the FCWC region allows us to meet the goals set under the FCWC 2021–2030 Strategic Action Plan, and brings us a step closer to improved beach seine management.”
“The EAF-Nansen Programme is pleased to partner up with FCWC to take stock of fisheries management achievements in the FCWC region, especially Côte d’Ivoire, Togo, and Benin, but also in Ghana and discuss the next steps for the implementation of management measures and plans for beach seine fisheries the four countries” said Merete Tandstad, EAF-Nansen Programme Coordinator, who also noted that emphasis is placed on sub-regional dialogue for regional coordination and harmonization of management measures for FCWC fisheries.
The expected outcomes of the regional meeting are lessons learned from implementation to guide the revision of the beach seine management plans for the FCWC region’s Member States and recommendations from a review of the FCWC Regional Fisheries Management Plan.
Background
The Fisheries Committee for the West Central Gulf of Guinea (FCWC) is an intergovernmental body established in 2007, with a Secretariat hosted in Tema, Ghana. The FCWC facilitates cooperation in fisheries management between its member countries: Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin, and Nigeria. The countries have several shared fish stocks and identify a need for cooperation and shared management of these resources.
The EAF-Nansen Programme is executed by FAO in close collaboration with the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research (IMR), funded by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad), and endorsed as one of the ‘Decade Actions’ under the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030). In collaboration with 32 countries across Africa and the Bay of Bengal, the Programme is committed to improving fisheries management in line with the ecosystem approach to fisheries (EAF), strengthening the capacities of fisheries institutions and generating scientific knowledge on marine resources and ecosystems.
