9 March, Dakar — Small-scale coastal fisheries stakeholders from Cabo Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Ecuador, Indonesia, Peru and Senegal convened for the fifth annual Coastal Fisheries Initiative (CFI) Global Partnership Consultation (GPC) in Dakar, Senegal, from 20-24 February.

Close to 80 participants attended in person and another 30 took part virtually in the 2023 GPC, which consisted of four days of workshops and a one-day field visit to CFI pilot sites in the Saloum Islands. Attendees included government and fishing community representatives from the six countries, as well as CFI executing partners, local dignitaries and other stakeholders.

Context

Artisanal fishers and fish workers are vital to making coastal fisheries sustainable. However, they often work in informal settings with little or no social protection, and are at the mercy of external shocks such as climate change, pandemics and pollution.

The CFI is working to change that by bringing together policy-makers, fishing communities, conservation organizations and the private sector in an effort to secure socially, environmentally and economically sustainable coastal fisheries.

This is an innovative effort because it fills a previously existing gap, according to Dr Robert Gouantoueu Guei, the Coordinator of the FAO Subregional Office for West Africa (SFW) and the FAO Representative in Senegal.

In his welcoming address at the GPC, Dr Guei described the CFI as ”an innovative initiative” that has stepped in to remedy an ”absence of coordination, collaboration and knowledge sharing at the global scale” in the management of coastal fisheries, which according to FAO are vital to almost 500 million people, most of them in developing countries.

Keynote speeches were also delivered by Ms Leah Bunce Karrer from the Secretariat of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), Mr Diène Faye, the Director of Maritime Fisheries at the Senegalese Ministry of Fisheries and Maritime Economy (MPEM), Mr Muhammed Zaini Hanafi, Director General of Capture Fisheries at Indonesia’s Ministry for Marine Affairs and Fisheries (MMAF), Ms Maria Sarraf, World Bank Director for Environment, Natural Resources and Blue Economy in charge of West Africa, and Mr Nathanael Hishamunda, the FAO Global Coordinator of the CFI.

Objectives

This year’s GPC focused on the co-management of fisheries and mangrove forests as an aspect of the Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries (EAF), enhancing the livelihoods of women in fisheries value chains, and preparing business cases for private sector engagement in sustainable fisheries.

The goals of the GPC included finding ways to ensure that both public and private entities can mainstream the project’s achievements, good practices and lessons learned in the six CFI beneficiary countries and three geographies (Asia, Latin America and West Africa), and how to transmit that legacy in the form of e-books, videos and other global knowledge products.

As well, participants discussed areas for in-depth collaboration between CFI Child Projects going forward. For example, CFI Indonesia and CFI West Africa expressed an interest in learning from CFI Latin America's successful co-management model in the Tumbes National Mangrove Sanctuary in Peru.

Côte d’Ivoire, Indonesia and Senegal, which all have extensive mangrove forests, also want to learn from CFI Latin America’s Incabiotec, a socially and environmentally responsible biotechnology company that works to repopulate depleted mangrove fish, shellfish and crustaceans.

In addition, the CFI Challenge Fund brokered contacts between Ecuador and Indonesia for an exchange of experiences in building business cases in pursuit of sustainable fisheries.

About the CFI

The CFI is a collaborative effort funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF). It brings together fishing communities, international conservation organizations, governments, UN agencies and the World Bank in an effort to achieve sustainable coastal fisheries and conserve marine biodiversity in Cabo Verde, Côte d'Ivoire, Ecuador, Indonesia, Peru and Senegal.