If there is a fisheries co-management plan, it will contain goals and objectives. These can be more or less detailed and cover environmental, social, economic and governance aspects. The clarity of the goals and objectives should be assessed. It should also be clear how the goals and objectives were agreed to, i.e. who prepared the plan, when was it prepared and what was the level of stakeholder participation? If there is no plan with goals and objectives, or if the goals and objectives are not clear, not formalized, or appear to have been agreed to through an inappropriate process, the focus of the evaluation should be on the good practices of the co-management system. It is strongly recommended that the goals and objectives in a co-management plan be developed in a participatory manner, together with fisheries co-management stakeholders, so that their degree of achievement can be assessed. However, this undertaking should be separate from the evaluation itself.