Ghana: Signing Ceremony of the FAO TCP on Strengthening Routine Fisheries Data Collection in the Fisheries Committee for the West Central Gulf of Guinea (FCWC)
Signing of the Technical Cooperation Project document by Minister Hon Sherry Ayithey and FAO representative in Ghana, Mr. ABEBE.
On the 12th January 2016 a signing ceremony of the FAO Technical cooperation project on strengthening routine fisheries data collection in Fisheries Committee for the West central Gulf of Guinea (FCWC) has been held.
Honourable Mrs SHERRY AYITTEY Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development of Ghana, Chairperson of FCWC Organization and ABEBE Haile Gabriel PhD, FAO Country Representative in Ghana, made the signature of the agreement.
The Minister commented this two (2) years support as one of the response to challenges undermining the fisheries sector of all FCWC member countries, in particular the lack of proper data collection, analysis and necessary funding from government budgetary allocations. She underlined that the knowledge of the status of trends of capture fisheries, including socio-economic aspects, are keys to sound policy-development, better decision-making and responsible fisheries management.
While, Mr ABEBE renewed the FAO’s concern in the sustainable management of fisheries resources worldwide and assured participants that the project implementation will start very soon.
Mr Seraphin Dedi, General secretary of FCWC, as beneficiary of the support, expressed his sincere gratitude to FAO on behalf of the six (6) contracting parties. He recalled that the support is the second phase of a previous project implemented in the region, under the FAO FishCode STF project from 2007- 2010.
Then this phase aims to sustain previous results on data collection and sharing focused on small-scale fisheries activities. He concluded that this TCP should also enable a primary step to the establishment of a Fisheries Data Centre in the region.
