In recent years, Social Responsibility has become a major concern also in the fisheries sector due to incidents of labour right violations and human rights abuses found at different stages of the fisheries value chain. As a result, numerous international and national initiatives are now calling for increased social responsibility and improvements in social and labour conditions in the sector.

In line with the mandate from the FAO Committee on Fisheries (COFI) to promote social sustainability in fisheries and aquaculture value chains, a number of Dialogues will be organized over the coming months. In particular, the Dialogues will focus on the draft FAO guidance on social responsibility that is being developed for presentation to the FAO Sub-Committee on Fish Trade (COFI-FT) in November 2019.

These Dialogues provide a great opportunity for FAO to present the draft guidance to stakeholders in the sector and for participants to provide feedback, comments, suggestions and inputs. Thus, concerns and gaps can be addressed, making the final document more inclusive and robust.

Likewise, the FAO draft guidance is available for public consultation through an online platform so that it can be reached by actors along the fisheries and aquaculture value chains in order to fill in any missing gaps. Stakeholders are encouraged to provide inputs, feedback, comments or suggestions.

The FAO draft guidance document is available on the e-platform until 28 July 2019.

For further information, please email Mariana Toussaint: [email protected]rg