The Fisheries Transparency Initiative (FiTI) is a global partnership that seeks to increase transparency and participation for a more sustainable management of marine fisheries.

FiTI's “transparency Briefs” (or tBriefs for short) seek to discuss the global interest of transparency in fisheries in more detail, including reviewing the evidence of lack of transparency in different aspects of fisheries, looking at emerging priorities (such as beneficial ownership transparency), as well as critically debating the effectiveness of transparency reforms for divergent groups and interests, such as small-scale fisheries, large-scale seafood companies, those fighting illegal fishing, and for governments wanting to develop a sustainable blue economy.

Subsidies have become one of the most controversial subjects in debates on fisheries reforms. Perhaps more than any other single factor, subsidies are seen as the source of a range of problems, such as overfishing, illegal fishing and unfair benefit-sharing. In this fourth tBrief edition, we outline the challenges of improving transparency in subsidies to the fisheries sector. Technical disagreements on the interpretation of key terms, as well as the extent of special treatment for developing countries, have hindered the negotiations. But beyond this, many nations appear reluctant to open their fisheries policies up to external scrutiny and potential disciplining.