FAO’s work on the Agreement on Port State Measures to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing
The Agreement on Port State Measures to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing (PSMA) was approved by the Conference of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in 2009 and entered into force in June 2016.
It is the first binding international agreement to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing by strengthening port state controls as a means of ensuring the long-term conservation and sustainable use of living marine resources. FAO supports the implementation of PSMA through the global programme PGM/MUL/2016-2021/PSMA, consisting of 21 projects/projects funded by bilateral and multilateral donors.
The evaluation aims to provide accountability to national governments, resource partners and FAO management for the results to which the programme contributed. It also seeks to draw lessons from the programme’s design and implementation that could inform future, similar interventions. The findings, conclusions and recommendations of the evaluation will inform the 5th Meeting of the Parties to the Agreement and contribute to a broader understanding of FAO’s work on the prevention of IUU fishing.
What did the evaluation cover?
The main objective of the evaluation was to assess the extent to which the PSMA Global Programme has achieved its intended results and to consider aspects of the design and implementation that are relevant to decisions about sustaining and/or scaling up the programme. The evaluation took place between October 2024 and March 2025 and relied on various methods, including portfolio analysis, document review, semi structured interviews with 79 stakeholders and site visits in Ecuador, Ghana, Guinea, Indonesia and Panama to collect data from multiple sources and enable triangulation.