The Fisheries Committee for the West Central Gulf of Guinea is hosting a workshop on its Regional Fisheries Management System (FMS) from 28th – 29th March 2019 in Tema, Ghana.

The workshop brings together fifteen (15) participants comprised of focal persons from each of the six (6) FCWC member countries, resource persons and the FCWC Secretariat, to review activities and challenges towards populating the regional FMS, and to validate findings from study of contribution of the artisanal fishery to GDP.

In his opening speech of the workshop, FCWC Secretary-General Seraphin Dedi recalled that “in 2012, 39% out of 54 African countries could not provide national fisheries statistics, 22% of data submitted were inadequate relative to importance of the countries’ fisheries. Since then, FCWC decided to lead improvements in the availability and quality of national and regional data to support fisheries management.”

Under the ended TCP-RAF 3215 funded by the FAO, the FCWC Secretariat was selected for storage, processing, analysis and retrieval of fisheries and aquaculture information, and a database centre was set up to house a webserver to host the Regional FMS. The Regional FMS has been developed as a web application, making it possible to pool artisanal fishery data over the internet, making quality scientific data to support fisheries management at the regional level easily accessible.