1. Election of chairperson and adoption of agenda
2. Objectives and target audience of the envisaged guidelines on increasing the contribution of small-scale fisheries to poverty reduction and food security
3. The contribution, role and importance of small-scale fisheries at the micro, meso and macro levels:
Micro level: sustainable livelihoods at household and community levels
Meso level: local and regional economic diversification and development
Macro level: contribution to national economic growth and food security
4. Enhancing the poverty eradication and food security roles of small-scale fisheries
Integration of fisheries into national poverty reduction and development strategies
Strengthening the rights of the poor (e.g. right to natural resources; right to food)
Pro-poor fisheries management approaches
Reducing vulnerability through better coping mechanisms and social safety nets
Making markets work better for the poor, especially poor women
Empowerment through communication, capacity-building and organization
Pro-poor research and information acquisition
5. Approaches to disseminate the guidelines
6. Methods to assess and evaluate the use and impact of the guidelines
Edward Hugh ALLISON
Overseas Development
Group
University of East Anglia
Norwich NR4 7TJ
United Kingdom
Tel.:
+44-1603-593724
Fax: +44-1603-451999
E-mail:
[email protected]
Claudia Stella
BELTRÁN
Economista
Corporación Andina para el Desarrollo
del
Medio Ambiente, la Pesca y la
Acuicultura
(CORMAPA)
Carrera 13
No. 73-33, Of.401
Bogotá, Colombia
Tel.: (0057-1) 2-673974
Fax:
(0057-1) 5-449166
Email:
[email protected];
[email protected]
Christophe BÉNÉ
Research
Scientist
WorldFish Centre
Africa and West Asia Office
Cairo,
Egypt
Mobile. 2 010 125 0185
Tel.: 2 02 736 4114 (Ext. 109)
Fax: 2 02
736 4112
Email:
[email protected]
John KURIEN
Profesor
Centre for Development
Studies
Ulloor, Thiruvananthapuram 695 011
Trivandrum,
Kerala
India
Tel.: +91.471.2446989(home)
+91.471.2448881
(office)
Fax: +91.471.2447137
Email:
[email protected]
Ousmane NDIAYE
Chef, Division pêche
artisanale
Ministère pêches et transports maritimes
1 rue
Joris
BP 289, Dakar
Senegal
Fax: (221) - 821 47 58
E-mail:
[email protected]
Chandrika SHARMA
Executive Secretary
ICSF
27, College
Road
Chennai 600 006
India
Tel.: +91 44 28275303
Fax: +91 44
28254457
Email:
[email protected]
Somony THAY
Chief
Community Fisheries Development
Office
Department of Fisheries
186 Preah Norodom Blvd..
PO. Box 582,
Phnom Penh
Cambodia
Tel: 855-23-210-154
Fax: 855-23-210-154
Email:
[email protected]
Observers
Aphichoke (Andy) KOTIKULA
Consultant
East Asia and
Pacific Region,
Poverty Reduction and Economic
Management Unit
World
Bank
Washington, D.C.
United States
E-mail:
[email protected]
Philip TOWNSLEY
IMM Ltd.
Via Roma 21
01100
Viterbo
Italy
Tel: +39 0761 346066
Cel: +39 329 6291816
E-mail:
[email protected]
Ulrich W. SCHMIDT
Socio-economist, Consultant
Gut
Hochschloss
82396 Pähl
Germany
E-mail:
[email protected]
FAO Secretariat
Rolf WILLMANN
Senior Fishery Planning
Officer
Development Planning Service (FIPP)
Fishery Policy and Planning
Division
E-mail:
[email protected]
Graeme MACFADYEN
Consultant to FAO Secretariat
Poseidon
Aquatic Resource
Management Ltd
Windrush
Warborne
Lane
Portmore
Lymington
Hampshire SO41 5RJ
United
Kingdom
Tel/fax: +44 (0)1590 610168
Mobile: +44 (0)7879 664988
Email:
[email protected]
Benoît HOREMANS
DFID Programme
Coordinator
Sustainable Fisheries Livelihoods
Programme in West
Africa
International Institutions and
Liaison Service (FIPL)
Fishery
Policy and Planning Division
E-mail:
[email protected]
Benedict SATIA
Chief
International Institutions
and
Liaison Service (FIPL)
Fishery Policy and Planning Division
E-mail:
[email protected]
FAO
Ichiro NOMURA
Assistant Director-General
Fisheries
Department
E-mail:
[email protected]
Hans BAGE
Fishery Industry Officer
Fishery Technology
Service (FIIT)
Fishery Industries Division
E-mail:
[email protected]
William EMERSON
Senior Officer (Fish Trade)
Fish
Utilization and Marketing
Service (FIIU)
Fishery Industries
Division
E-mail:
[email protected]
Angel A. GUMY
Senior Fishery Planning
Officer
Development Planning Service (FIPP)
Fishery Policy and Planning
Division
E-mail:
[email protected]
Helga JOSUPEIT
Fishery Industry Officer
Fish Utilization
and Marketing
Service (FIIU)
Fishery Industries Division
E-mail:
[email protected]
Mousthapha KEBE
DFID (Project)
Sustainable Fisheries
Livelihoods
Programme in West Africa
E-mail:
[email protected]
Blaise KUEMLANGAN
Legal Officer
Legal Office
E-Mail:
[email protected]
Auden LEM
Fishery Industry Officer
(Trade
Information)
Fish Utilization and Marketing
Service (FIIU)
Fishery
Industries Division
E-Mail:
[email protected]
Francisco PEREIRA
Senior Fisheries Officer
Regional
Office for Latin America and the Caribbean (RLC)
Casilla 10095
Santiago,
Chile
E-mail:
[email protected]
http://www.rlc.fao.org
Fabio PITTALUGA
SFLP/DFID Technical Officer
(Project)
SIFAR Support Unit
TEMP/INT/914/MUL
Eric REYNOLDS
Programme Coordinator
FishCode
Programme
Fishery Policy and Planning Division
E-mail:
[email protected]
Andrew SMITH
Fishery Industry Officer (Fishing
Gear)
Fish Utilization and Marketing
Service (FIIU)
Fishery Industries
Division
E-mail:
[email protected]
Derek STAPLES
Senior Fishery Officer
Regional Office for
Asia and the
Pacific (RAP)
39 Phra Athit Road
Bangkok 10200,
Thailand
E-mail:
[email protected]
Uwe TIETZE
Fishery Industry Officer
(Socio-economist)
Fishery Technology Service
Fishery Industries
Division
E-mail:
[email protected]
Hiromoto WATANABE
Fishery Liaison Officer
International
Institutions and
Liaison Service
Fishery Policy and Planning
Division
E-mail:
[email protected]
1. OBJECTIVE
To develop guidelines for enhancing the contribution of small-scale fisheries to poverty reduction and food security.
2. MANDATE
The Twenty-fifth Session of the Committee on Fisheries, Rome, Italy, 24-28 February 2003, welcomed the suggestion for FAO to elaborate, in the context of the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, technical guidelines for increasing the contribution of small-scale fisheries to food security and poverty alleviation.
3. ISSUE
Small-scale fisheries can be broadly characterized as employing labour intensive harvesting, processing and distribution technologies to exploit marine and inland water fishery resources. The activities of this sub-sector, conducted full-time or part-time or just seasonally, are often targeted on supplying fish and fishery products to local and domestic markets, and for subsistence consumption. Export-oriented production, however, has increased in many small-scale fisheries during the last one to two decades because of greater market integration and globalization. While typically men are engaged in fishing and women in fish processing and marketing, women are also known to engage in near-shore harvesting activities and men are known to engage in fish marketing and distribution. Other ancillary activities such as net-making, boat-building, engine repair and maintenance, etc. can provide additional fishery-related employment and income opportunities in marine and inland fishing communities.
Small-scale fisheries operate at widely differing organizational levels ranging from self-employed single operators through informal micro-enterprises to formal sector businesses. This sub-sector, therefore, is not homogenous within and across countries and regions and attention to this fact is warranted when formulating strategies and policies for enhancing its contribution to poverty reduction and food security.
While currently many small-scale fishing communities are poor and vulnerable, small-scale fisheries can generate significant profits, prove resilient to shocks and crises, and make meaningful contributions to poverty alleviation and food security, in particular for:
those involved directly with fishing (fishers, traders, processors, etc.);
the dependents of those involved directly with fishing (fishing-related households and communities);
those who buy fish for human consumption (consumers);
those who benefit from related income and employment through multiplier effects; and
society in general and those who benefit indirectly as a result of national export revenues from fisheries, re-distributive taxation and other macro-level mechanisms.
The Expert Consultation will consider policies and strategies which could be pursued and specific actions which could be taken that would help to increase the contribution of small-scale fisheries to poverty eradication and food security. Some strategies lie within the fisheries sector, and can therefore be tackled by fisheries-specific initiatives while others require action by planners, policy-makers and practitioners in other sectors.
4. LANGUAGES
The meeting will be conducted in English. The final outcome of the meeting, i.e. the technical guidelines, will be translated into all the official languages of FAO.
5. DOCUMENTATION
Draft elements of the technical guidelines will be circulated by the FAO Secretariat to the invited experts by mid-June 2004. As appropriate, additional materials will be made available by the FAO Secretariat and by the invited experts.
6. PARTNERSHIP
The Expert Consultation is a joint undertaking of the FAO Fishery Policy and Planning Division and the DFID-funded Sustainable Fisheries Livelihoods Programme (SFLP).
1. Provisional agenda
2. Prospectus
3. List of participants
4. Background paper on enhancing the contribution of small-scale fisheries to poverty alleviation and food security by Bene, C., Macfadyen, G. and Allison, E.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Welcome to Rome and welcome to FAO.
Im very grateful that you have accepted to serve as experts in this Consultation. I also would like to express my thanks to your organizations or governments which have agreed to your participation.
Many of you are aware that small-scale fisheries and their contributions to poverty alleviation and food security featured prominently at the last session of the FAO Committee on Fisheries held in February of last year. COFI explicitly commended FAO to have placed small-scale fisheries as a stand-alone item on its agenda. This came, as some of you may remember, after a break of two decades. Indeed, this month signifies the twenty year anniversary of the FAO World Conference on Fisheries Management and Development (27 June to 6 July 1984) which in its 8 substantive strategy elements included one entitled: The special role and needs of small-scale fisheries and rural fishing and fish farming communities. Its focus was squarely on betterment of the livelihoods of small-scale fishing communities through various means not least by making them participate more actively in the planning and implementation of development and management activities. Much of what was said in this strategy is still appropriate and relevant today. There is, however, one important dimension of small-scale fisheries that hardly featured in the strategy, namely their overall contribution to economic growth, food security and poverty reduction. As is too the case with agricultural development at a larger and more profound scale, the importance of small-scale fisheries for rural development and overall well-being in a country can hardly be overestimated. Deplorably this is not usually well reflected in actual policy-making.
COFI has asked FAO to elaborate guidelines on increasing the contribution of small-scale fisheries to poverty alleviation and food security as part of its series of technical guidelines on implementation of the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries. Much has happened in the international arena and at national levels since the Code was negotiated and finally adopted in 1995. Awareness has grown that more specific policies and interventions are needed to get people out of poverty, prevent them to fall into poverty, and to secure their nutritional well-being at all times. The international community is committed to the aims of reducing by half the number of poor and food insecure people by 2015 - which at once appear like overly modest objectives in the sense of being too little too late, as well as overly ambitious objectives in the sense of the kind of profound structural changes and adjustments that are needed to attain them.
Well, I do not wish to further delay your review and discussion of what I have understood is a comprehensive draft of the envisaged guidelines. Before ending, however, I should mention that our work in this area is supported by the FAO/DFID Sustainable Fisheries Livelihoods Programme (SFLP) and that the outcome of your work will be made available to the next session of COFI where once again small-scale fisheries will feature prominently on its agenda.
1. Background. Use FAO standard
2. Introduction
a) Context and scope to highlight
Difference between fisheries and agriculture, current resource status, production growth mentality.
Mandate of COFI (include importance and actual/potential contribution of small-scale fisheries).
Recent international developments and commitments (recent focus on PA and FS, Millennium Development Goals, WSSD).
Codes development and gaps.
Primarily small-scale capture fisheries.
b) Objectives
To support a special focus on small-scale fisheries.
To fill the gap in the Code on small-scale fisheries, and especially on poverty and food security issues in light of the developments and renewed international focus on these issues.
To stimulate ideas and thoughts amongst policy-makers, by providing illustrations and examples.
To make practical suggestions about ways to ensure that the contribution of small-scale fisheries to poverty reduction and food security is maximized.
c) For whom/target audience
These guidelines are directed at decision makers, planners, and all those involved in developing and implementing policy relevant to small-scale fisheries, including small-scale fishers and fishworkers.
3. Definitions and concepts
a) Characterization of small-scale fisheries (Quote from ACFR meeting in Bangkok)
b) Concept of poverty and vulnerability to poverty
Evolving understanding (broadening of concept and importance of vulnerability).
What is special in relation to small-scale fisheries (link to characterization)?
c) Concept of food security
Direct and indirect, and link to poverty.
What is special in relation to small-scale fisheries?
4. Contribution, role and importance of small-scale fisheries in poverty alleviation and food security
a) Small-scale fisheries and poverty alleviation
Macro (GDP, tax, foreign exchange, comparative advantages of small-scale fisheries vs. industrial fisheries, including social/economic (equity, spreading out of benefits), cultural, political, and environmental issues).
Local (income and employment multipliers e.g. market stimulation due to cash crop nature of fish, upstream/downstream linkages, tax, strong local/social linkages due to use of shared resources).
Household (central in livelihoods strategies. Different levels of activity: full time, occasional/supplementary (comment on why i.e. reduces risk, generates cash), seasonal, safety-net.
b) Small-scale fisheries and food security
Global (high contribution ~50% of food fish from small-scale fisheries. Almost all fish from small-scale fisheries for direct human consumption).
Regional and national level (intra-regional trade, importance in developing countries).
Direct at individual/household level (nutritional contribution).
Indirect at individual/household level (to barter/purchase food).
5. Enhancing the role of small-scale fisheries in contributing to poverty alleviation and food security
a) A vision for small-scale fisheries (ACFR vision)
The vision for small-scale fisheries is one in which their contribution to sustainable development is fully realised. It is a vision where:
they are not marginalised and their contribution to national economies and food security is recognized, valued and enhanced;
fishers, fish workers and other stakeholder have the ability to participate in decision-making, are empowered to do so, and have increased capacity and human capacity; thereby achieving dignity and respect; and
poverty and food insecurity do not persist; and where the social, economic and ecological systems are managed in an integrated and sustainable manner, thereby reducing conflict.
b) Fisheries policy favouring the poor
Processes (synthesize following list and review again)
- More emphasis on analysis of policy stakeholders, and specific issues of governance.- May need legislation and/or formalization of processes to ensure appropriate involvement by small-scale fisheries interests.
- Careful planning to allow sufficient time and budgets for wide stakeholder involvement to become a reality.
- Working with small-scale fisheries organizations to strengthen the ability of their representatives to participate meaningfully.
- Adaptation of workshop tools to cater for different educational levels and experience of technical issues, and to encourage contributions to be made by small-scale fishers at policy meetings.
- Making specific use of the knowledge and experience of small-scale fishers and fish workers.
- Formalization of methods to ensure transparency i.e. full disclosure of information on the extent of the involvement by different parties, and reasons for inclusion and exclusion of particular issues in policy documents, the selection of key priorities, and the processes used.
- Decentralization of policy processes, which increases both the potential for stakeholder involvement, but also accountability by bringing decision-making closer to the people.
- Regular review and analysis of policies.
- Analysis of policy processes.
- Review of implementation strategies.
- Participation as key.
- Link with PRSPs.
- Specification of appropriate objectives
- Add bullets currently in legislation section of background document in here
- Put table 9 from background document in annex, noting that categories are not discrete.
- Policy trade-offs
- Between objectives.
- Between short-term vs long-term.
- Need information (quantitative and qualitative) on which to assess trade-offs. To some extent may be inherent, and there may be no optimal policy.
- Policies have distributional impacts, so each policy objective should be assessed in terms of its impacts on the poor (note direct and indirect impacts within fisheries and on other sectors), and potential conflicts.
c) Legislation in support of the poor
Process of law making - needs to be participatory at all levels (national and local laws and bye-laws).
Focus on pro-poor areas where legislation most needed e.g. rights issues.
Reference to pro-poor international conventions/laws and need for legislation to support commitments (Labour rights, right to food, womens rights, human rights).
d) Implementation issues (not specific to other sub-sections/topics)
Human capacity development.
Importance of information.
Need for appropriate funding.
Need to strengthen institutional/organisational development:
- more small-scale fisheries experts;
- more social/economic/livelihoods emphasis/skills;
- involvement of small-scale fisheries with administrations
- need to work/strengthen fisher organisations;Include civil society, users, etc (participation and empowerment).
e) Cross-sectoral solutions
Easier at local level (principle of subsidiarity), and need to improve at national level.
Vertical integration and link with PRSPs.
Multi-use nature of resources, and need to manage sectors, including aquaculture, in an integrated manner).
Improving livelihoods through non-fishing initiatives (health, literacy etc.).
Livelihoods diversification.
Need to make small-scale fisheries more visible at national level, and promote a partnership between civil society, private sector, States, and donors to ensure sufficient funds and support for small-scale fisheries.
Reference to ecosystem-based management.
Reference to ICAM Code and Guidelines.
f) Fisheries management solutions
Broad principles
- Rights-based management.
- Exclusive and preferential access for small-scale fisheries and the poor (but normally based on gear and boat size, and assumption that small-scale fisheries may not use a particular type of gear e.g. trawls).
- Need to combat idea that offshore is just for industrial fisheries...issue of small-scale fisheries moving offshore (also put in Technical Paper).
- Decentralized management...using local legislation.
- Small-scale local processing and marketing of VA products.
- Granting and protecting rights of ownership to coastal/shoreline land.
- Political support and ensuring financial sustainability.
- Need to manage industrial and small-scale fisheries in an integrated manner.
Specific (strip out duplication in other sections)
- Co-management/community-based management and poverty alleviation (enabling policies and legislation, preventing elite capture, co-management objectives, strong central government capacities, co-management and local political power, capacity-building and social preparation, political processes rather than technical assistance, co-management and gender issues, grassroots and NGOs, community heterogeneity).
- Protected areas and resource enhancement- pros and cons in terms of poverty and greater involvement of marginalised. Marine protected areas (MPAs) might be extractive or non-extractive and allow poor and certain types of small-scale gear. Link with environmental ministries.
- Assessment and management of overcapacity and IUU/IPOAs and applicability to small-scale fisheries.
- Technical measures and destructive fishing gear. Need to match technology with eco-system and nature of resource.
- Potential for collective management to retain employment, and improve efficiency and equity in the long-term.
g) Making markets work for the poor
Stress actual benefits of marketing and increases in trade.
Current/recent changes (demand/supply, product forms, certification, regulatory issues. But distributional/equity impacts on poor).
Need to raise awareness of importance of small-scale fisheries post-harvest sector.
Product markets, credit markets, input markets, and overlapping/linkages.
Collective organisations for marketing.
Gender importance.
Marginalization - gender balance different in different countries/regions.
Traders empirically more vulnerable than capture sector?
Access to fish (facilities, right of first sale).
Access to markets... reduce market imperfections and ability of poor to engage in markets....oligopolies, better market information.
Ability to influence markets.
Look at World Development report on poverty.
h) Financing poverty alleviation
Fisheries sector has access to wider national poverty reduction programmes, and retention of funds for use to support poor small-scale fisheries.
Financing transition to responsible fisheries.
Financing community development.
Credit and savings and different mechanisms (linked to markets, funds etc.).
Insurance and social security funds.
i) Information and communication
Increase awareness by poor small-scale fishers and fish workers of their rights so they can advocate for them.
Better involvement of poor small-scale fishers and fish workers in communication and information systems (internet, radio - note that region-specific in terms of uptake).
Extension in social matters.
Better methods of getting information...integrated methods, better use of, and recognition, of traditional knowledge.
Getting message across at high political level of potential and actual contribution of small-scale fisheries to PA and FS.
Informative workshops aimed at facilitating the exchange of information between planners and fisheries stakeholders. This would in particular address the current lack of representation of the small-scale fishery sector in poverty reduction strategies.
Organization and coordination of Fisheries Forums at different levels (local, district, national and international) to foster stakeholder participation in the decision-making process, institutional development of the sub-sector and to raise awareness of their importance.
Working with the fisheries departments as key-message carriers through to Ministers.
Influencing the major donor agencies (in particular the World Bank -due to its large influence on national policies) to ensure that small-scale fisheries are part of their own agenda (e.g. World Bank Green Books).
Consider the potential role of pressure groups, i.e. International NGOS, civil society, World Forums, etc. in influencing the agenda setting and the policy process of national governments.
Need for more/better/different types of information on small-scale fisheries.
Research requirements (summary of key topics in current sections 9 and 10).