Global view of the conference room -FCWC Attends Ghana Small Pelagic Fisheries Coalition Dialogue
The Fisheries Committee for the West Central Gulf of Guinea (FCWC), as a partner in the Improving Fisheries Governance in Ghana and Wider Sub-region (IFG) project, participated as an observer in a one-day dialogue between a collation of regional small pelagic fisheries committees of Ghana on 27 June 2024, at the Dream Inn Hotel, Weija, Ghana.
As part of Ghana’s 2020 Fisheries Comanagement Policy implementation, regional small pelagic comanagement committees (SPCCs) have been established in Ghana’s four coastal regions (Central, Greater Accra, Volta, and Western) comprising resource users, to support fisheries management. The SPCCs address key issues in fisheries co-management including the level of involvement of stakeholders in planning and decision-making; IUU fishing; and the levels of awareness among fishers who are not sensitized to the sector’s issues.
The dialogue between the resource users, facilitated by Hen Mpoano and supported by Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) Ghana and Friends of the Nation Ghana (FoN Ghana), was organized to promote conversation between the attendees to explore building a coalition of the SPCCs at the national level, thereby strengthening the ability of SPCC activity outcomes to feed into the national decision-making processes in fisheries co-management.
If formalized by the Fisheries Commission, the actions of the potential national SPCC (NSPCC) would feed into the Fisheries Operation Management Committee (FMOC) discussions. The NSPCC would work to build consensus, harmonize measures, coordinate uniformity of rules to apply in all regions, advocate for further intricate harvest control regimes, and establish clarity to dispel any confusion or other issues that arise when fishers migrate from region to region.
Each regional SPCC (represented by their chairman and two representatives) attended the meeting, to consider the merits and demerits of the potential NSPCC and steps to be taken toward its potential realization. The activity was supported by the ‘Improving Fishing Governance in Ghana and the Wider FCWC subregion’ project, with funding from Oceans 5 and Oak Foundation.
