Needs assessment workshop held in Angola to strengthen fight against IUU fishing
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) held a national workshop in Angola to develop a National Strategy and Action Plan for the implementation of the FAO Agreement on Port State Measures (PSMA), complementary international instruments and regional mechanisms to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
The workshop was held in Luanda from 11 – 15 March 2024.
More than 25 participants, representing 10 national agencies including fisheries, navy, customs, police, migration, health, and justice, discussed the main challenges and opportunities to improve the policy, legal and institutional frameworks to strengthen the monitoring, control and surveillance system, to increase cooperation, and to promote coordination.
The resulting National Strategy and Action Plan will, after the endorsement of the Government of Angola, constitute the basis to strengthen the country’s fight against IUU fishing. The preliminary findings were presented to the Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources, Carmen dos Santos, during the conclusion of the workshop.
During her opening intervention, the Minister encouraged participants to adopt a holistic and inter-agency approach in combatting IUU fishing and stressed the importance of an effective enforcement system with a deterrent sanction scheme.
The FAO Programme Assistant, Anastácio Gonçalves, emphasised the Government of Angola’s important role in the adoption of the instrument that establishes a network of cooperation amongst the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries (CPLP), to promote sustainable fishing and combat IUU fishing. The instrument was adopted by the Ministers of Sea Affairs of nine Portuguese speaking countries, at the sidelines of the UN Ocean Conference in 2022. FAO supported all nine countries with technical assistance in the lead up to the adoption of the legal instrument.
Angola became a Party to the PSMA in July 2022.
The workshop was the first intervention under the TCP/INT/3094 programme, Technical support to catalyze the implementation of the FAO Agreement on Port State Measures among the Member States of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries.