The First Regional Symposium on Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Mediterranean and Black Sea was organized from 27 to 30 November 2013 by the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM) in partnership with the International Centre for Advanced Mediterranean Agronomic Studies (CIHEAM) – Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Bari (MAIB), the FAO Fisheries Department and FAO regional projects, the Network of Marine Protected Area Managers in the Mediterranean (MedPAN) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Mediterranean Programme, and hosted by the Government of Malta. More than 170 participants gathered to share their experience and discuss the future of small-scale fisheries in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. For the first time in the region, national administrations, international organizations, scientists, nongovernmental organizations, fisher communities, stakeholders and civil society sat around the same table to address issues of common interest and challenges for building common strategies, synergies and cooperation to support the sustainable development of this sector. The discussions enabled insights on the main issues at stake and laid the groundwork for a regional programme fostering knowledge on small-scale fisheries and involving all interested stakeholders. The event was also marked by the signature of a cooperation agreement at the regional and subregional level between fishers from the northern and southern shores of the Mediterranean. Finally, all participants concurred on the importance of organizing a second regional symposium in order to follow through on this momentum.