Jan Johnson (at the time, FAO Fisheries Industries Officer in West Africa) originally conceived the idea of national training in Guinea using distance learning courses based on PRA port profiles. Max Wilkie (consultant) was contracted to put this idea on paper. The document produced was field-tested by Lionel Awity and Samuel Quaatey (Ghana Department of Fisheries). The resulting document was revised by consultants Ricardo Ramirez and, later, Karin Verstralen. When Jan Johnson left the FAO Fisheries Department, Noeky Lenselink (FAO Fisheries Industries Officer) further developed the document. Karin Verstralen rewrote it and added to the existing materials, and Noeky Lenselink adapted the final draft. The editing was done by Diana Willensky.
This manual was funded by and prepared within the framework of the FAO programme Sustainable Development of Small-scale Fisheries (RP 233A2). More specifically, it is an output of the development of participatory methods and tools. Much of the manual was inspired by the authors’ and consultants’ experience with numerous FAO projects in West Africa, specifically: the Sustainable Fisheries Livelihoods Programme (SFLP), the Programme for the Integrated Development of Artisanal Fisheries in West Africa (IDAF), the Fisheries Development Programme in Cape Verde, and the Natural Resource Conflict Management Sub- Programme of the Livelihoods Support Programme (LSP).
The authors would like to thank Jeremy Turner, Chief of the Fishing Technology Service, for his support throughout the final stages of the development of the document. Very special thanks go to Tina Farmer (Technical Editor of the FAO Fisheries Department) and Françoise Schatto (Publication Assistant) who, as usual, played a crucial role in ensuring the smooth publication of the manual.
