Later sections of this paper develop some strategies for capacity development in fisheries. The first step in this process is to identify capacity development needs. This raises a number of important questions, all of which are likely to influence the type of capacity development required, and ultimately the appropriate delivery mechanism for any particular initiative:
What are the key problems, and which aspects of capacity development are most needed to solve these problems? The need for capacity development will be determined by perceptions about the current problems in any given context and the extent to which these can be solved through capacity development. In one instance, the most pressing problem might be perceived to be a lack of sufficient fisheries management causing overexploitation, and capacity development might therefore be most urgently required in the field MCS and other management-related fields. In another instance, fish may be being caught sustainably but with profits to local populations being limited because of a insufficient awareness or ability to access different and more lucrative markets. In such a situation, capacity might be developed through support to individuals or marketing/processing organizations in product development, marketing and distribution.
Who defines the needs for capacity development? Assessing what are the key problems and associated capacity development needs to solve them, raises the question as to what extent the specification of such needs should be demand-driven, and what are the best ways to involve target individuals or groups in this definition process? Certainly lessons from previous projects suggest that the failure of many initiatives has been because recipients of initiatives have not been sufficiently involved in the definition of problems and capacity development needs. This has led to the introduction of participatory mechanisms for problem identification e.g. the Logical Framework Analysis by development agencies by such as DFID, GTZ and NORAD (Gabriella Bianchi, pers. comm.). However, it should also be recognized that the ability of target populations to identify priority needs may itself be constrained and defined by the current level of their own capacity development; insufficient awareness of developments in topics and approaches may result in target populations requesting outdated training and skills.
What is it realistic to expect can be achieved through capacity development initiatives? As presented in Figure 1-2, capacity development should strive to bring about changes in understanding, knowledge, attitudes, behaviours, practices and skills. Different capacity development needs will result in a focus on different levels of this capacity development process. For example if the need is primarily to acquire/provide basic knowledge or improve understanding, then appropriate tools may include training or information provision. If needs are more pressing in terms of changing attitudes and providing practical experience, field-based support may be more appropriate. However it must also be recognized that there are other factors that may be outside the realm of a fisheries capacity development initiative. Examples include: shortages of funds; high turnovers of staff; external macro-economic factors; natural/environmental factors; national-level policies or actions in other sectors impacting on fisheries. Any capacity development initiative must be cognisant of these external factors and the overall context in which the initiative is to operate.
Table 2-1: IPOA implementation capacity development needs
|
IPOA title and description |
Capacity development needs areas[4] |
||
|
|
Fisheries Science R&D |
Sector Management |
Societal Skills |
|
IPOA for the Management of Fishing Capacity: the objective is for States and Regional Fisheries Organizations (RFOs) to achieve by 2005 an efficient, equitable and transparent management of fishing capacity. Where fishing capacity is undermining achievement of long-term sustainability outcomes it should be limited at present levels and progressively reduced for affected fisheries. The focus is upon (i) assessments of fishing capacity and improvement of the human capability for monitoring fishing capacity; (ii) the national plans to effectively manage fishing capacity and of immediate actions for coastal fisheries requiring urgent measures; (iii) strengthening of RFOs to manage fishing capacity at regional and global levels; and (iv) immediate actions for major transboundary, straddling, highly migratory and high seas fisheries requiring urgent measures. |
· Measurement of fishing
capacity |
· Develop alternative livelihood
options |
· Awareness building of fishers
and coastal communities |
|
IPOA to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing: This is a voluntary instrument that applies to all States and entities and to all fishers. Following the IPOA's introduction, the nature and scope of IUU fishing is addressed - this is followed by the IPOA's objective and principles and the implementation of measures to prevent, deter and eliminate IUU fishing. These measures focus on all State responsibilities, flag State responsibilities, coastal State measures, port State measures, internationally agreed market-related measures, research and regional fisheries management organizations. |
· Appropriate VMS and other
surveillance technology |
· Strengthen regulatory
structure |
· Awareness building of fishers
and Producer Organizations |
|
IPOA for Reducing Incidental Catch of Seabirds in Longline Fisheries: This is to be implemented through an assessment of relevant problems as national fisheries jurisdictional level followed by a programme providing (i) prescription of mitigation measures, (ii) research and development, (iii) education, training and publicity and (iv) data collection. |
· Data collection &
monitoring needs |
· Management mechanisms e.g.
seasonal/area closures |
· Awareness building via outreach programmes |
|
IPOA for the Conservation and Management of Sharks: This recognizes the vulnerability of sharks and rays to certain fisheries, the restricted abilities of fish to respond to fishing mortality and the low level of utilization of bycatch and consequential high degree of discarding. All countries which have endorsed the international plan are required to prepare a National Plan of Action and Shark Assessment Reports to identify those species of shark that require actions to ensure their conservation. The main elements of the ‘shark plan’ are to (i) minimize waste and discards of shark catches and (ii) encourage full use of dead sharks. |
· Stock assessment |
· Management mechanisms e.g.
seasonal/area closures |
· Awareness building via
outreach programmes |
Which level of capacity is the focus of assistance? With reference to Figure 1-1, capacity development needs, appropriate initiatives, and the likely time and resources required may be vastly different depending on whether capacity development is focused on individuals or groups of individuals, institutions, sector support, or efforts to create an enabling social environment. As the Figure explains, creating an enabling social environment is likely to require a longer period of initiative, whereas provision of specific skills and knowledge to individuals may be achieved quickly and at a relatively low cost.
What are the current capacity levels, and who is the target group(s) within each capacity level, so that core capacities can be built on? The changing development context described in Section 1.3 means that many institutions need to radically alter the content and style of their management/research/teaching to reflect issues of interdisciplinarity, participation, etc (Allison and McBride, 2003). Benchmarking the current approaches used by management, research and training institutions is necessary to compare such approaches with new developments and approaches gaining wider recognition. Likewise for individuals, what are the roles and responsibilities of the target group(s), and what knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviours are they expected to have to be able to fulfil those roles? Are they required to have specialist technical skills, or general management ones? Are they government employees, university or research staff, private sector, NGOs? Identifying appropriate needs for different individuals/groups requires a benchmarking assessment of "knowledge, attitude, skills, and ability" (KASA) against an idealized KASA profile for his/her position. For example, with respect to the fisheries management process, the idealized capacity needed will be very different for senior fisheries managers, middle-level fisheries staff, field staff, trainers, or extension workers. Harte (2001) presents an example of the assessment of a hypothetical fishery agency official, where the first column identifies some of the KASAs appropriate to the individual’s role in the management process. The second column benchmarks for each KASA the individual’s KASA score against a KASA profile score in the third column for his/her position/role. The final column provides contextual comment to the individual and potential training providers.
Table 2-2: Benchmarking approach to KASA levels
|
KASA |
Score |
Profile Score |
Comment |
|
Fisheries Management Specific KASAs |
|||
|
Knowledge of stock assessment |
1 |
2-3 |
Limited formal training in stock assessment or related discipline. Key training required |
|
Cost benefit analysis skills |
3 |
3-4 |
Sound innate skills, overall score restricted by limited knowledge/experience of formal analytical methodologies |
|
Fisheries law |
3 |
3 |
KASA equivalent to required profile |
|
Management Team Specific KASAs |
|||
|
Achieve results |
2-3 |
4 |
Needs development so that the drive is there to push project through to completion |
|
Communicate openly |
4 |
3 |
Strong KASA |
|
Focus on clients and quality |
3-4 |
5 |
As an advisory unit, exceeding client’s expectations is key to the success and ability to influence outcomes |
Source: Modified/simplified from Harte 2001
As fisheries management becomes more participatory, there is likely to be a greater need for capacity development of fishers, local organizations etc., all with an idealized profile score.
Other examples of practical/current approaches being used for needs assessment are presented in Section 4.1.3.
What is the time-frame of the improvement required? Capacity development needs will depend greatly on how quickly an improvement is required. For assistance with immediate problems that need to be solved quickly, on-the-job training or workshops might be required. For medium/long term improvements such as implementation of the ecosystems approach by 2012, it may be necessary and appropriate to change university curricula or research agendas to gradually build up the necessary capacity to implement such an approach to fisheries management. What sort of capacity is being developed may itself also have time implications as suggested in Figure 1-1. For example it may be possible to provide training in data collection quickly, but training for more effective policy development may require much longer time periods for it to be successful.
Despite the recognition that human capacity development needs will be case/initiative specific depending on the answers to the questions posed above, it is nevertheless possible to identify a range of general needs that might be required for successful fisheries management and sustainable exploitation, and on which capacity development initiatives might focus.
Projects to develop capacity in fisheries have traditionally focused largely on training and development of practical skills (i.e. improved fishing techniques, better fish storage and preservation etc), as well as on developing the capacity of scientists to provide scientific advice for fisheries management purposes. This has been set against a background of overall institutional capacity development, again focusing on traditional clients such as public sector fisheries and research departments. However, we have attempted to widen the horizon of capacity development needs by the fisheries sector and suggest that there are three main pillars of skill and knowledge areas as demonstrated in Figure 2-1 overleaf and summarized below. The individual list of capacity development areas within the boxes could of course be added to, and expanded into more detailed topics, but represent a first-stage categorization. The individual boxes and skill areas may be used to support capacity development at any of the four levels of capacity development described in Figure 1-1 and in the text in Section 1.2. In addition, the reader is referred back to Table 2-1 on page 7, which also highlights some specific capacity needs of IPOAs based on these three main pillars.
Technical fisheries science, research and development: a traditional focus of training, this group has generally responded well to formal and practical training courses. Often with a high science or technical content, a large number of universities and specialist fisheries training institutes have tailored courses, and overseas students often represent a significant proportion of student numbers and fee revenues (see Section 3.1). Although a number of the subjects are now well established, two emerging areas of importance include aquatic ecosystem management (see Box 1 overleaf) and information technology. The former is particularly important, as this has proved the basis for the precautionary ecosystem approach to fisheries management now advocated on a global basis, but operational process to achieve this still remain in their infancy.
Fisheries sector management: capacity development in this group has usually been based around donor-assisted projects with an institutional capacity-building component, often running alongside a more practical technical development theme. This has often proved an effective approach, although its long-term sustainability may depend upon both the recipient institutions as well as the capacity-building approach adopted. A number of themes have been emerging over recent years. One is the reduction of fishing capacity, which requires a particular combination of management and socio-economic skills (see Table 2-1 on page 7). Another important one is the increasing emphasis on the sustainable livelihood approach (SLA) to fisheries development. A third is more interest in "poverty" issues. The SLA and poverty assessments and solutions, require particular skill sets that are frequently novel and may require different approaches to traditional capacity development used in fisheries.
Societal skills and knowledge: this group of skill areas represents the areas that have largely been ignored until recent times, and which are generating increasing interest. They focus not necessarily on fisheries-specific issues, but on wider aspects that can contribute to an enabling environment. This requires capacity development at the national and sector level to assist facilitate good macro-economic policies, good governance and lack of corruption. It also requires fisheries managers and other stakeholders to possess management and other skills that may not be fisheries-specific.
For many fisheries, especially those small-scale or artisanal in nature undergoing transformation as a result of environmental, political and socio-economic change, the development of societal skills and knowledge at a local level also provides a resilience that allows communities to better control their own destiny. Community mobilization and empowerment though collective organization may allow fishers to build stakeholder consensus leading to improved representation for resource access, control and management. Such consensus-building also improves the ability to manage conflict and dissent that can divide communities, especially in the face of change. Parallel to this have emerged other societal needs that affect resource benefit flows - these include a growing awareness of sustainability issues themselves and the finite nature of fisheries resources and their ecological "support system".
Box 1: Ecosystem approach to resource natural management
|
The ecosystem approach is a strategy for the integrated management of land, water and living resources that promotes conservation and sustainable use in an equitable way. It has 12 basic principles[5]: Principle 1: The objectives of management of land, water and living resources are a matter of societal choices. Principle 2: Management should be decentralized to the lowest appropriate level. Principle 3: Ecosystem managers should consider the effects (actual or potential) of their activities on adjacent and other ecosystems. Principle 4: Recognizing potential gains from management, there is usually a need to understand and manage the ecosystem in an economic context. Principle 5: Conservation of ecosystem structure and functioning, in order to maintain ecosystem services, should be a priority target of the ecosystem approach. Principle 6: Ecosystem must be managed within the limits of their functioning. Principle 7: The ecosystem approach should be undertaken at the appropriate spatial and temporal scales. Principle 8: Recognizing the varying temporal scales and lag-effects that characterize ecosystem processes, objectives for ecosystem management should be set for the long term. Principle 9: Management must recognize the change is inevitable. Principle 10: The ecosystem approach should seek the appropriate balance between, and integration of, conservation and use of biological diversity. Principle 11: The ecosystem approach should consider all forms of relevant information, including scientific and indigenous and local knowledge, innovations and practices. Principle 12: The ecosystem approach should involve all relevant sectors of society and scientific disciplines. The ecosystem approach requires adaptive management to deal with the complex and dynamic nature of ecosystems and the absence of complete knowledge or understanding of their functioning. The complexity of the issues concerned, and the wide variety of stakeholders involved, have a number of implications for capacity-building:
|
Since the 2001 Fourth WTO Ministerial Conference in Doha there is also a greater understanding of the opportunities that global trade presents to fishers, as well as the potential harm that trade barriers, sanitary and phyto-sanitary (SPS) measures and market-driven initiatives may have in terms of reducing livelihood options for poor people. Increasing access to the Internet by rural communities provides major opportunities in terms of an information and communication tool, but these are opportunities which require capacity development if rural communities are to be able to exploit them.
|
[4] Capacity development needs,
and their division into these three conceptual categories are explored in more
detail in Figure 2-1 on page 11 [5] Convention of Biological Diversity, see http://www.biodiv.org |
){kind=link}