The Fisheries Committee for the West Central Gulf of Guinea (FCWC) hereby announces that it will hold its 15th session of the Conference of Ministers from 11 to 13 December 2024 in Monrovia, Liberia, both in person and online.
The Ministers of the six FCWC Member States (Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, and Togo) will convene to attend this year’s meeting organised on the theme “Promoting Decent Work and Strengthening the Marine Ecosystem Resilience for the Sustainability of the Fisheries Sector.” The Ministerial Conference on 13 December 2024, will be preceded by a two-day Advisory and Coordinating Committee (ACC) session gathering regional and international partners and national directors in charge of fisheries and aquaculture in the region on 11 & 12 December 2024. The session’s participants will deliberate on the theme, review the Secretariat’s activity and results, and agree on a workplan and budget for the 2025 period, which will be submitted for adoption by the Ministers.
“This fifteenth session of the FCWC Conference of Ministers is significant for many reasons. Firstly, it will allow us to review the extraordinary period since the last Conference of Ministers in 2023. These two years have been marked by substantial progress at the national and regional levels – the elimination of a notorious form of transhipment, joint regional fisheries patrols, the implementation of the first-ever transboundary fisheries closed season, and a joint patrol in support of this measure to name a few. It is essential for us to highlight and celebrate these while examining the opportunities we have as a region to advance further.
Secondly, this session’s theme demonstrates that in addition to our MCS successes, we aim to enlarge our focus to include activity on the fisheries environment and the fishers themselves to ensure that the progress we have made in enforcement is sustained by including other aspects of sustainable regional fisheries management,” said FCWC Secretary-General Dr Antoine Gaston Djihinto.
Liberia’s President, Joseph Nyuma Boakai is expected to attend the Ministerial Conference to open the proceedings. Moreover, a Declaration of Monrovia is scheduled to be delivered by Liberia’s Director General of the National Fisheries and Aquaculture Authority (NaFAA), Hon. Emma Glassco, calling her colleague Ministers to support her calls to action on fisheries management measures, particularly fishery closed seasons and the development of a Regional Record of Authorised Fishing Vessels (RRAFV) to support the work of the Regional Monitoring Control and Surveillance Centre (RMCSC).
This session will also provide the opportunity for six Member States to commit to harmonise policy and common actions to be taken to preserve fisheries stocks and develop aquaculture in the region through reviewing the existing projects, initiatives and plans, andidentifying priority actions.”
Background
The 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: Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, and Togo. The countries have several shared fish stocks and identified the need for cooperation and shared management of these resources.
