“Workshop to enhance the sub-regional cooperation on fisheries, aquaculture and oceanographic research through the network RIMSMER” organized by the FAO in collaboration with the directors and focal points from the oceanographic and fisheries research centres and institutes from Algeria, Lybia, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia, that have endorsed the initiative to create a Marine Research Centers Network RIMSMER in 2011. 

This network is believed to be highly instrumental to enhance the scientific cooperation among countries in the sub-region; setting priorities for research, coordinating data collection and compilation, standardizing analyses and assessments, ensuring the availability of adequate equipment and human capacity, and enhancing the capability to deal with data-poor situations.

The three days’ workshop, will discuss the actual situation of the marine research institutes of the Maghreb region; the presentation of a regional project proposal for the consolidation and operationalization of the network (RIMSMER) and its cooperative research activities; the presentation of different regional and sub-regional partnership opportunities; and the discussion of the institutional support to RIMSMER.

The North African sub-region is characterised by a wide and dispersed marine environments and fishing and aquaculture activities. The marine resources are an essential resource of income, employment, livelihood protection and food security in the sub-region. To ensure the responsible management and sustainable exploitation of these resources the best scientific collection and analysis of trustful data, proper research infrastructure, a sharing information and knowledge system, and the strengthening of regional cooperation is needed.