From 10th to 13th April 2017, Mr Angaman Konan, and Mr Ken Homma, both Technical Advisors of the Ministry of Animal and Fisheries Resources of Côte d’Ivoire, embarked on a mission on behalf of the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to visit the Fisheries Committee for the West Central Gulf of Guinea (FCWC). The visit aimed at exploring possible collaboration with the FCWC to support fisheries development in the West Africa sub region.
Mr Konan explained that the delegation was in to understand the objectives, activities and achievements of the FCWC. He stated that it was important for JICA to know at what level their support could be useful, working in partnership with the FCWC According to him, JICA supports fisheries activities through governments. “JICA already has a fisheries programme with Côte d’Ivoire. We are, therefore, here to explore an area of collaboration with the FCWC based on the programme being run in Côte d’Ivoire,” he said.
The Secretary General of the FCWC, Mr Seraphin Nadje Dedi, gave an introduction of the mandate, organs, strategic plan and the 2017 planned activities. Mr Dedi said a key component of the work of the FCWC is to promote regional cooperation in fisheries management in the West Africa sub region. Presentations were then made on the various ongoing projects under the supervision of the FCWC. These are: Overview of the Monitoring, Control and Surveillance (MCS) project funded by NORAD; Overview of Fish Trade project funded by Fish Trade Programme, and TCP project on routine data collection in small scale fisheries funded by FAO. These presentations highlighted challenges in the fisheries sector development and possible areas of collaboration with JICA.
Explaining the activities of JICA, Mr Homma outlined the types of support JICA offers, the modalities for the different types of support, areas of interest to JICA, ongoing projects funded by JICA in the region, and why JICA now aims to explore ways for regional projects in fisheries management in the sub region.
Led by the Secretary General of the FCWC, the delegation held discussions with fisheries authorities, the University of Ghana, Fish Traders Associations and other stakeholders in the fisheries development sector in Ghana.
At the end of mission the JICA Representative, Mr Homma, shared his impression on the visit. “I am really impressed by the quality of the discussions we had and mostly by the performance of the FCWC Secretariat in both administrative and technical management of the Committee to achieve its goals. I am sure JICA would like to partner with FCWC as a fully established organization,’’ he said. Mr Dedi assured the mission that he would also follow up with JICA on the discussions held for concrete collaboration in the near future.
