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Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries

in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication

An interview with SEADFEC about implementing the SSF Guidelines in Southeast Asia

21/04/2020
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Women involved in the local selling of fish catches. © SEAFDEC

The Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center (SEAFDEC) is an important partner to FAO when it comes to implementing the SSF Guidelines in Southeast Asia. The text below is an interview with staff members in the SEAFDEC Secretariat and SEAFDEC/Training Department:

A regional approach to small-scale fisheries
When the SSF Guidelines came, SEAFDEC showed keen to implement them from the start. In August 2015, they supported the first regional workshop on the implementation of the SSF Guidelines, and the following year, they stood host for a technical consultation for adopting a regional approach to implementing the Guidelines.

That time, SEAFDEC members met with international and regional organizations, non-governmental organizations, civil society organizations, and small-scale fisheries associations from across the region to discuss how they could take the SSF Guidelines to heart in their work.

The ambition born back in 2015-2016 lives on; SEAFDEC has kept hosting a number of consultations and workshops of high relevance to the implementation of the SSF Guidelines. Dr. Worawit Wanchana, Policy and Program Coordinator, SEAFDEC Secretariat describes that

– It is our role to collaborate with national and regional organizations to promote the SSF Guidelines. We have understood the need for consulting all stakeholders, and we make others understand it too.

He stresses that what comes out of this kind of events is a heightened awareness and understanding among the participants – about small-scale fisheries, about the people in fisheries, and about ways to consult, involve and support them. This shows for instance in how they formulate project documents and make key issues visible.

The SSF Guidelines work best as a framework
Even though SEAFDEC has always been attentive to people’s needs and wellbeing when supporting fishing communities, the SSF Guidelines have helped frame key issues, put them into words and give a rationale to why they are important to address. 

Ms. Pattaratjit Kaewnuratchadasorn, Senior Policy Officer, highlights the importance of the SSF Guidelines as a framework. She compares them to the UN Sustainable Development Goals which came around the same time:

– As with the SDGs, we use the SSF Guidelines as a point of reference that we keep coming back to, she explains. We don’t follow the Guidelines like 1, 2, 3… but many of our activities reflect them.

Ms Kaewnuratchadasorn underlines how both instruments reinforced one another and have given SEAFDEC a clear frame when setting the course for their work.

Putting gender equality into words help achieve it
SEAFDEC’s gender focal point, Ms Jariya Sornkliang describes how gender equality as a defined concept entered into their work much thanks to the SSF Guidelines (chapter 8) and the SDGs (Goal 5).

– We always involved men and women in our work, she claims, but we didn’t stress the importance of equal opportunity before – we can trace that back to the SSF Guidelines!

Ms Sornkliang further explains that this conceptualization has helped many women realize that they are indeed part of the workforce in small-scale fisheries:

– We tell women about equality, that they have the same importance in fisheries. The women often respond like ‘oh! I contribute a lot in fisheries!’. They feel more confident.

She points out that this empowerment has made women more concerned about fisheries matters such as resource management.

SEAFDEC keep educating communities about gender equality, for instance through a policy brief on applying human rights-based and gender equality approaches to small-scale fisheries and a practical guide for gender analysis in small-scale fisheries and aquaculture.

Capacitation and monitoring
As shown above, the work of SEAFDEC ranges from the international (the consultations) to the local (community engagement to empower women). They also play an important role on a national level, for instance by training and capacitating national fisheries officers. As they learn about the SSF Guidelines, they also make more efforts to consult with and involve the fishing communities.

SEAFDEC also monitors sustainable development in fisheries in their member countries. Since the SSF Guidelines came, they have looked more closely into their members work in small-scale fisheries, and proposed concrete actions for improvements.

About SEAFDEC
The Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center (SEAFDEC) is an inter-governmental organization with a mission to ensure sustainable fisheries and aquaculture in Southeast Asia. They do so by promoting and facilitating coordinated actions from their member countries: Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Viet Nam.

The organization is governed by its members through the SEAFDEC Council, and their work is coordinated by a Secretariat based in Bangkok, Thailand.

SEAFDEC and FAO
SEAFDEC and FAO collaborated long before the SSF Guidelines came, for instance to implement the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries launched in 1995, and to train fisheries officials and communities in co-management and the ecosystem approach to fisheries management.

Learn more
SEAFDEC has conducted several activities at local level to support small-scale fishers and their communities. See for example:

You can also read this policy framework for SEAFDEC to implement several activities that also includes the SSF Guidelines:

You can also find out more about SEAFDEC on www.seafdec.org/about 

A note of thanks
A warm thanks for taking the time to answer questions and sharing further information goes to:

Dr. Worawit Wanchana, Policy and Program Coordinator, SEAFDEC Secretariat
Ms. Pattaratjit Kaewnuratchadasorn, Senior Policy Officer, SEAFDEC Secretariat
Ms. Suwanee Sayan, Senior Program Officer, SEAFDEC Secretariat
Ms. Thanyalak Suasi, Fisheries Management Section Head, SEAFDEC/Training Department
Ms. Jariya Sornkliang, Fisheries Management Scientist and Gender Focal Person, SEAFDEC/Training Department
Ms Rattana Tiaye, Fisheries Management, Scientist, SEAFDEC/Training Department