EAF-Nansen Programme

Fisheries institutions in 18 countries receive training on “Legal Diagnostic tool” for implementing an Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries

17/12/2020

A series of online regional workshops took place from September to December 2020, to train 72 country representatives (45 men and 36 women) from Africa and South-East Asia on how to use a diagnostic tool on implementing an ecosystem approach to fisheries (EAF) through policy and legal frameworks – the “EAF Legal Diagnostic Tool”.

These workshops, carried out by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation (FAO)’s Development Law Service (LEGN) and FAO’s Marine and Inland Fisheries Branch (NFIF), were initiated after the tool was internally tested in an EAF online mock training, held in April 2020.

Click to enlargeWorkshop participants met via the online platform Zoom to learn how to use the "EAF Legal Diagnostic Tool". ©FAO


All three workshops in the series adhered to the same concept note, and were structured to provide participants with: (i) an overview of the EAF, as well as guiding materials and tools developed by FAO; (ii) an introduction to the EAF Legal Diagnostic Tool, its context, methodology, main elements and its use; (iii) presentations by each country on updates on the EAF in national policies and legislation; (iv) practical and interactive exercises with participants on the use of the EAF Legal Checklist; (v) reporting of the findings by each country based on the exercises; (vi) presentation of the EAF implementation roadmap; and (vii) exchange of views with the countries on the roadmap.

The first workshop, organized from 15 to 17 September, gathered participants representing national fisheries institutions of seven English-speaking countries in Africa: The Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Namibia, Sierra Leone and Tanzania. The second workshop, carried out from 9 to 11 November, included participants representing national fisheries institutions in six English-speaking countries, including Bangladesh, Maldives, Myanmar, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Thailand. The third workshop took place from 7-10 December and included participants from fisheries ministries and institutions of five countries: Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, Morocco, Senegal and Togo.

Despite being virtual, these workshops were interactive and participants were able to clarify questions and engage in group exercises using an online platform. Each country team worked in break-out groups to begin filling in the EAF Legal Checklist and discuss the EAF Implementation Roadmap. These practical exercises were an opportunity for different institutions within a country, but all related with fisheries issues, to work together on EAF implementation through policy and legal frameworks.

Using the EAF Legal Checklist, FAO has prepared 32 desk-based preliminary individual EAF Legal Reports of countries covered by the EAF-Nansen Programme. These reports provide results of the assessment of the countries’ selected policy and legal instruments against the EAF Legal Checklist informing on the level of their alignment with an EAF. As a follow-up to each workshop, FAO has reviewed the respective EAF Legal Reports of each participating country and complemented them with additional information obtained during the workshop and the countries’ own assessments using the EAF Legal Checklist.

“Reviewing national policy and legal frameworks is essential to ensure that the relevant requirements are met to implement an Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries and contribute to the efforts for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals under the 2030 Agenda,” stated Blaise Kuemlangan, chief of FAO’s LEGN Service. The EAF Legal Diagnostic Tool was developed on the basis of previous works/efforts (carried out) to implement the EAF from a policy and legal standpoint, including Legislating for an Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries: a review of trends and options in Africa (also available in French); and A How-to Guide on Legislating for an Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries (also available in French).

“The objective of using this tool is to make us understand the challenges at the policy and legal level, and to understand better how we could help ensure that the national policy and legal frameworks are set out to support sustainable fisheries management,” explained Merete Tandstad, Senior Coordinator of the EAF-Nansen Programme.

Users of this tool are guided through step-by-step analysis, starting by verifying the status of a country with respect to selected, international legally-binding instruments relevant for EAF. Then, users are guided to identify national policy and legal instruments relevant for an EAF using FAOLEX database and, in particular its country profiles, and to assess such selected instruments against the EAF Legal Checklist. This checklist provides non-exhaustive list of 82 EAF legal requirements organized under a structure of a typical fisheries primary legislation.

During the third workshop, Gunnstein Bakke, Senior legal advisor at the Directorate of Fisheries in Norway underlined the relevance of the tool for its future use by saying: “this tool is very useful and it will assist the countries in the future on different levels, including the national level and other processes for the implementation of the Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries.”

The EAF Legal Diagnostic Tool is soon to be published in both English and French versions, and another two online regional workshops are scheduled for 2021. The fourth training is planned to take place from 25 to 28 January 2021 with the presence of the French-speaking countries (Cameroon, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Guinea, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mauritania, and Seychelles), followed by the fifth workshop planned for the week of 15 to 18 February with Portuguese-speaking countries (Angola, Cabo Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, and Sao Tome and Principe).

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