Kenya continues improving its national capacity to combat IUU fishing
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in close collaboration with officers from the Kenyan Fisheries Service recently carried out a review of fisheries monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS) in Kenya to take stock of current arrangements and assess the extent to which these enable the country to meet its obligations as a port, flag, coastal and market State and improve national capacity to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
In addition to Kenya Fisheries Service, officers from the Border Management Committee, Kenya Ports Authority, Kenya Coastguard Service, Kenya Maritime Authority, Kenya Revenue Authority, Kenya Wildlife Service and the National Environment Management Authority contributed to the review.
The MCS review, carried out between 9 – 17 October 2023, examined 50 MCS related topics, grouped across 8 thematic areas: a general description of the fisheries sector; the MCS and enforcement framework; the fisheries monitoring centre; human resources; training programmes and capacity building; information collecting mechanisms; MCS means; and standard operating procedures. The review was guided by the FAO methodology to assess MCS systems and resulted in an initial list of 17 key recommendations, which were discussed and agreed with the Kenya Fisheries Service as the principal competent authority for fisheries.
Field visits were also made to a landing site at Malindi, the fishing port development at Shimoni and Liwatoni fishing port in Mombasa as part of the review process. The MCS review was the third project activity in Kenya under the German funded project GCP/GLO/1047/GER, the Port State Measures Support Project, which supports, among others, capacity development in four African developing States.