In March 2020, a regional inception workshop was held in Ghana a project of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) entitled Enhancing the contribution of small-scale fisheries to food security and sustainable livelihoods through better policies, strategies and initiatives. This is the report from the workshop.

The project promotes the application of the principles of the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication (the SSF Guidelines) in FAO member countries and regions. The project end date was originally in December 2019 but was extended for another year into 2020 to focus on the issue of empowering women in fisheries for sustainable food systems. Accordingly, the project will support women in small-scale fisheries, particularly in the postharvest sector, with a view to improving food security and nutrition and promoting gender equality. In 2020, related activities will begin in Ghana, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania. The project will also support sharing lessons learned and good practices, and it will help to strengthen institutional structures at the regional and global levels.