Paraguay

In Paraguay, fisheries are regulated through temporary fishing closures established for resource conservation purposes. The establishment of the closing season changes on an annual basis and covers the entire national territory. Such measure restricts fishers’ livelihoods during the closed season period, and therefore, requires a compensation scheme mechanism for their lost income and to encourage compliance with natural resource management regulations.

The Assistance Programme for Fishers (Programa de Asistencia a Pescadores del Territorio Nacional, in Spanish) is a monetary compensation during the closed fishing season, and it varies according to its duration. To access the benefit, fishers need to be part of the General Fisheries Registry and pass a poverty-based proxy means-testing eligibility criterion. The assistance programme benefits around 19,648 fishers, providing only one subsidy per household but varying with the size of household (as per three levels: single household, less than 4 members and more than 4 members), as long as they are not receiving any other governmental subsidies, except for indigenous fishers for whom this requirement is waived.

To date, there is no assessment of the adequacy and performance of the Programa de Asistencia a Pescadores, and thus this agreement seeks to fill in this gap by undertaking a thorough assessment of the implementation of the programme, its use of social registries as well as to assess its socioeconomic impacts. 

Work Plan 

1. Evidence-based policy support through assessment of enabling frameworks between social protection and fisheries and aquaculture 

• Conduct an evaluation of the socio-economic impact of the Assistance Programme for Fishers

2. Technical tools developed to enhance fishers’ capacity to respond to covariate shocks caused by climate, health, socio-economic and environment disasters affecting fishing livelihoods. 

• Evaluate the registry systems of artisanal fishers in Paraguay
• Design and implementation of technical instruments that collaborate in the implementation of efficient fishing programmes 

3. South-South and Triangular Cooperation and dissemination of results to share lessons learned on scaling-up of social protection programmes to respond to covariate shocks in the fisheries sector.

• Organize and carry out events for the exchange of experiences between countries in order to learn about fishing experiences that contribute to public policies for social protection