Owing to the sheer number of entities active in the fisheries sector worldwide, there are problems of overlapping or duplicate mandates, incoherence in the applicability of rules, and resource (human and financial) wastage.  To address these challenges, a Regional Consultation on the Development of a Coordination Framework Among Regional Fishery Bodies (RFBs) in the Eastern Central Atlantic Ocean was organized by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), from 30 November – 2 December 2022 in Accra, Ghana, to identify areas for improved coordination and cooperation among RFBs and other regional and international organizations.

The FCWC participated in the consultation organized in the framework of the initiative “Follow-up action to the 34^th FAO Committee on Fisheries,” funded by the European Commission and the Government of Japan. in the Eastern Central Atlantic Ocean.

Cooperation has been identified as the method to create synergies, overcome inefficiency and develop regional coordination effectiveness. Through a review of the outcome of a survey of RFBs activities in the region, and through cooperative identification of priority areas for technical cooperation and coordination, a regional coordination framework was conceptualized. The consultation’s participants included representatives from 9 regional fisheries bodies including Benguela Current Convention (BCC), Fishery Committee for the Eastern Central Atlantic (CECAF), Ministerial Conference on Fisheries Cooperation among States Bordering the Atlantic (COMHAFAT/ATLAFCO), Commission Régionale des Pêches du Golfe de Guinée (COREP), FCWC, General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean and the Black Sea (GFCM/FAO), Sub-Regional Fisheries Commission (SRFC), International Commission for the Conservation, and other regional and international organizations including the African Union Interafrican Bureau on Animal Resources (AU-IBAR), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), International Whaling Commission (IWC), and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Canary Current Large Marine Ecosystem (CCLME), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC).