The Fishery Committee for the Eastern Central Atlantic (CECAF), in collaboration with FIEL (FAO, Rome), will be organizing a workshop on Port State Measures to combat Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing in the West Africa sub-region from 9th to 12th June 2009 at the FAO Regional Office for Africa Conference Room.

The countries expected to participate in the workshop include Mauritania, Senegal, The Gambia, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin, and Nigeria.  The primary objective of the Workshop is to develop national capacity and promote bilateral, sub-regional and/or regional coordination so that countries will be better placed to strengthen and harmonize port State measures and, as a result, implement the relevant International Plan of Action (IPOA) - IUU tools, the FAO Model Scheme and the legally-binding instrument on port State measures as agreed.