Tools for the Guidebook for evaluating fisheries co-management effectiveness
Task 2.2: Describe the co-management implementation process
This task involves describing the process and activities taken in the development and implementation of the fisheries co-management system. It describes “how did we go about it?”. A generic model or process of the implementation of fisheries co-management can be viewed as having three phases:
- Pre-implementation
- Implementation
- Post-implementation
Within each of the three phases there are a number of activities that can be undertaken. The identification and description of the various activities of the fisheries co-management implementation process allows for an understanding of which activities functioned well or not.
The list of activities is meant to help identify the types of activities that may be undertaken during the three phases of fisheries co-management implementation. The list is not meant to be inclusive as other additional activities may have been undertaken and should be added to the description. For the fisheries co-management system under evaluation, the activities of the three phases of co-management implementation (pre-implementation, implementation and post-implementation) should be identified and briefly described in terms of when the activity was undertaken, who lead it and what was done.
Ideal types of activities in a co-management implementation process
Pre-implementation
- Problem recognition and consensus to take action
- Initiation of action either internally and/or with external organization
- Resource user/stakeholder meetings and information sharing
- Assessment of needs, feasibility and suitability of co-management
- Requests for assistance from government, non-governmental organizations, academic institutions, research institutions, donors
- Preliminary plan of action and strategy
- Identification of funding and other resources
- Legal framework for fisheries co-management
- Approvals from resource users, stakeholders, government
- Establishment of linkages between government, resource users and other stakeholders
Implementation
- Identification, establishment and development of a core group and leaders among resource users and stakeholders
- Resource users and stakeholder meetings and discussions
- Identification of fisheries co-management boundaries/management unit
- Identification and analysis of stakeholders, including resource users and stakeholder organizations
- Identification of problems, needs and opportunities
- Area profile/research and participatory research (baseline data)
- User group/fishing community empowerment through education, capacity development, social communication
- Development and establishment of a conflict management mechanism
- Development and establishment of co-management administrative body/organization (to conduct and oversee the co-management plan)
- Co-management partnership agreement
- Development of fisheries co-management plan – goals, objectives, activities, monitoring and evaluation plan
- Sustainable financing strategy
- Fisheries co-management plan implementation
- Enforcement and compliance
- Monitoring and evaluation
- Adaptive management
- Networking and advocacy
Post-implementation (or co-management system sustainability)
- Scaling up activities and boundaries/management unit
- Expansion of activities based on plan
- Evaluation and adaptive management
- Networking and alliances
As with the description of the context of the fisheries co-management system in Task 2.1, the description of the fisheries co-management system implementation process activities is closely linked to the good practices and will be used for the analysis of good practices. The description of the process activities will also be used in understanding linkages and relationships between and among the elements of the fisheries co-management system - context, process and patterns of interaction - and outcomes.
Suggestions
This task, like Task 2.1, can include key informant interviews; secondary data and information; surveys and relationship mapping; and other activities.
- Fish Forever. (2019). Building effective management bodies, edited by C. Cox, R. Mancao, Q. Quintanilla & A. Valdivia. (Updated January 2021). Arlington, USA: Rare, Inc.
- Léopold, M., Thébaud, O. & Charles, A. (2019). The dynamics of institutional innovation: Crafting co-management in small-scale fisheries through action research. Journal of Environmental Management, 237: 187–199.
- Secretariat of the Pacific Community. (2010). A community-based ecosystem approach to fisheries management: Guidelines for Pacific island countries. Noumea, New Caledonia.
- Takahashi, B. & van Duijn, A.P. (2012). Operationalizing fisheries co-management: lessons learned from lagoon fisheries co-management in Thua Thien Hue Province, Viet Nam. RAP Publication 2012/02. Bangkok: FAO.