4. Implementation (Article 10.4)

"States should establish mechanisms for cooperation and coordination among agencies involved in development, planning and management of the coastal area." (Article 10.4.1)

71. Conventional sector planning generally takes little account either of the resource externalities generated by the sector and passed on to another sector or those originating in another sector and impacting upon it. Improved planning will enable line ministries to identify and assess cross-sectoral impacts and the effects of management intervention. Such policy analysis is an essential basis for an effective presentation of the concerns of the fishery sector, first when area management strategies are being formulated and, second, during plan implementation, for the satisfactory negotiation with other line ministries and institutions involved in the negotiation process of trade-offs between development proposals.

72. Appropriate institutional arrangements are required to provide for cross-sectoral area management strategies to be formulated and to provide a forum for the resolution of conflicting sectoral-based actual and proposed actions.

"States should ensure that the authority or authorities representing the fisheries sector in the coastal management process have the appropriate technical capacities and financial resources." (Article 10.4.2)

73. In adapting the functions, structure and capacity of fisheries authorities to ensure the sound integration of fisheries into coastal management planning, care has to be taken that the authorities have the trained generalists and specialists required for comprehensive planning required and to staff properly any core group which might be established to coordinate inter-sectoral programmes and policies.

74. While this concern with institutional capacities is general across the sectors in many countries, it is of particular relevance to fisheries. It is not unusual for fisheries authorities to be lacking skills and experience in policy and institutional analysis and in all aspects of sectoral planning.

75. For fisheries authorities to ensure that the activities and interests of the sector are incorporated into coastal management planning in a way which will maximise the contribution of the sector to economic and social welfare, it is important that they develop strengths in four main areas. These are as follows:

- skills and experience in the collection and analysis of bio-physical, and social and economic information, and its use in policy analysis;

- the establishment of institutional arrangements at local, national, sub-regional, and regional levels to deal with open access issues and cross-sectoral impacts;

- skills and experience in sectoral planning; and

- enforcement capacity.