Stakeholders in the Asia-Pacific region were the first to begin putting the SSF Guidelines into action. This article highlights efforts to implement the SSF Guidelines in the region.

Mainstreaming SSF Guidelines in Asia and the Pacific

Two multi-stakeholder consultations have been convened in the Asia-Pacific region, one organized by FAO and the Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center (SEAFDEC) and hosted by Indonesia for the Southeast Asia region in 2015, and a second organized by FAO together with the Bay of Bengal Large Marine Ecosystem programme (BOBLME), and hosted by Sri Lanka in 2016 for South Asia. SEAFDEC then built on the recommendations of the 2015 event by organizing a regional technical consultation in Thailand in 2016, which agreed on a regional approach to implement the SSF Guidelines.

A fish vendor by the Salmar Sea, Philippines. ©FAO/Petri Suuronen

Regional policies and processes are essential to support the implementation of the SSF Guidelines at the national and local levels. We in FAO work closely with our members, regional organizations and other partners to integrate the principles of the SSF Guidelines in regional and national policies, strategies and initiatives. We also support the development of tools and capacities necessary for implementation.

FAO’s role is that of a facilitator and a catalyst. Our comparative advantage lies in our ability to bring a multitude of actors together, as well as in our capacity to develop methods and tools, and identify and share good practices within and between countries and regions.

Today, more stakeholders than ever are applying the SSF Guidelines in their work in Asia and the Pacific. These actors include small-scale fisheries organizations and civil society organizations – many of whom have been engaged from the start – but also development partners, intergovernmental organizations, regional fisheries management organizations, non-governmental organizations, foundations and research institutes. The growing engagement by a multitude of actors is promising – and key to making the SSF Guidelines a reality on the ground.

Activities and achievements in Asia and the Pacific

Key activities and achievements of FAO and its partners to implement the SSF Guidelines in Asia and the Pacific are summarized here:

SSF Guidelines on the agenda in regional forums

The SSF Guidelines have made it onto the agenda in high-level forums in the region – an important achievement to stimulate awareness and uptake.

The Asia-Pacific Fishery Commission (APFIC) are among those who have taken note of the SSF Guidelines. In their Executive Committee’s 76th session held in 2017, they welcomed continued support for the implementation of the SSF Guidelines at the national and regional levels. Then in their Seventh Regional Consultative Forum Meeting in 2019, APFIC acknowledged the need for “reinforced legal frameworks and guiding policies to ensure a human rights-based and environmentally friendly development” in line with the SSF Guidelines. Following up on this statement, APFIC’s Executive Committee in their 77th session, also held in 2019 “welcomed continued support for the implementation of the SSF Guidelines at the national and regional levels”.

The thirty-third session of the FAO Regional Conference for Asia and the Pacific, held in 2016, requested FAO to strengthen support to Members to empower small-scale fishers, as reflected in the SSF Guidelines.

Currently, in the lead-up to the thirty-fifth session, a paper has been prepared, inviting the Conference to request continued work from FAO that will support the implementing the SSF Guidelines in the region. The Conference was originally scheduled for February 2020, but has been postponed due to the COVID-19 crisis.

• In this context, the Bay of Bengal Programme Intergovernmental Organisation (BOBP-IGO) also deserves attention. It is mandated to enhance cooperation among member countries (Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Sri Lanka) as well as other countries and organisations in the Bay of Bengal region. BOBP-OGI has contributed to raising awareness on the SSF Guidelines in various ways, for instance through co-developing a manual on safety at sea for small-scale fisheries together with FAO.

A man on a boat in Koh Rong, an island in the Sihanoukville Province of Cambodia. ©FAO/Selvaggia Cognetti de Martiis

Translating the SSF Guidelines into languages of the region

It is crucial that stakeholders can understand the recommendations in the SSF Guidelines to apply them in their work. One way to boost understanding is to offer information in people’s mother tongue. The SSF Guidelines are available in the following languages spoken in the region: Arabic, Bengali, Burmese, Chinese, Gujarati, Hindi, Indonesian (Bahasa), Japanese, Kannada, Malayalam, Odia, Oriya, Russian, Singhalese, Tamil, Telugu and Thai. Most of these translations have been prepared on the initiative of our partners, especially civil society organizations, includingthe International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF).

ICSF also prepared a summary of the SSF Guidelines which is available in Bengali, Burmese, Gujarati, Hindi, Indonesian (Bahasa), Laos, Marathi, Kannada, Khmer, Malayalam, Odia, Tamil, Thai, Telugu, Urdu, and Vietnamese. We thank all partners for making these translations possible – and invite others to translate the SSF Guidelines into even more languages!

From FAO’s side, we have made sure that both the SSF Guidelines and the SSF Guidelines website are available in all official languages of the UN, including Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish.

Efforts to advance human rights and gender issues

The SSF Guidelines call for a human rights-based approach and put a special emphasis on gender equality.

At the regional level, SEAFDEC is shaping its regional approach for implementing the SSF Guidelines with a focus on the human rights-based approach and gender equality and organized a dedicated expert workshop on this in 2017. This resulted in a policy brief on applying human rights-based and gender equality approaches to small-scale fisheries in Southeast Asia and a practical guide for gender analysis based on the principles of the SSF Guidelines. SEAFDEC is now starting to apply this guide in selected countries with support from FAO.

In the Pacific, our partner Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) has complied a similar practical guide on improving gender and social inclusion in coastal fisheries and aquaculture. That guide is in support of an instrument called “A New Song for Coastal Fisheries, Pathways to Change: The Noumea Strategy” (the News Song). The New Song strategy was the outcome of an SPC multi-stakeholder workshop in 2015. It has many similarities with the SSF Guidelines, and is has been suggested that implementing the New Song will also help implement the SSF Guidelines – not least on gender issues.

Coming back to recent events, the Gender in Aquaculture and Fisheries Section (GAFS) of the Asian Fisheries Society and Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) organized the Seventh symposium on Gender in Aquaculture and Fisheries (GAF7) in October 2019 attended by about 150 participants. A special workshop of GAF7 discussed the role of women fish worker organizations in implementing and monitoring the SSF Guidelines.

The commitment to advance gender issues also inspired the USAID Oceans and Fisheries Partnership and SEAFDEC to organized a regional workshop on gender integration in fisheries in early 2020, inviting us at FAO to speak on gender-sensitive reporting and gender equality in line with the SSF Guidelines.

As for the human rights-based approach, the Danish Institute for Human Rights (DIHR) organized a regional seminar in Asia in November 2019 to discuss the role that national human rights institutions can play in the fisheries and aquaculture sector. The national human rights institutions, UN agencies, academia, civil society organizations and NGO representatives gathered proposed a series of actions, for instance: bridge the knowledge gap on human rights impacts in the sector, and produce tools and guidance for national human rights institutions on how to use their mandate to promote and protect human rights in small-scale fisheries. FAO continues to work on with DIHR on how to strengthen and promote human rights.

Loida Lagan fish vendor from Palawan Philippines. ©FAO/Rommel Cabrera

Work on tenure rights, resource management and the SDGs

Other cornerstones of the SSF Guidelines are tenure rights and resource management (chapter 5). We in FAO have worked on applying the related guidance in the region through several initiatives.

For instance, we hosted a global conference on tenure and user rights in fisheries in the Republic of Korea in 2018, highlighting how the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (Tenure Guidelines) and the SSF Guidelines are key to linking fishing tenure, resource access, user rights and human rights. We then followed up with a regional workshop on tenure and user rights in Thailand in 2019 to further explore how to apply tenure rights in fisheries in practice.

In this context, we have also supported initiatives in Pacific island countries to strengthen fisheries associations and cooperatives so that they can have closer contacts with national and regional organizations, and engage more in management and decision-making processes.

Ensuring fair access to resources is also an objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). FAO is the custodian agency for 21 SDG indicators. Among them is the SDG indicator 14.b.1: “Progress by countries in adopting and implementing a legal/regulatory/policy/institutional framework which recognizes and protects access rights for small-scale fisheries”. To support our Pacific Island member countries’ efforts to monitor and report on this indicator, we arranged a regional workshop in 2019.

We would also like to give recognition to the dedicated work of our partners in the region to implement the SSF Guidelines at national level. Some examples are national capacity building on the ecosystem approach to fisheries management and the SSF Guidelines in Myanmar, a national workshop on improving inland fisheries governance in India and a training on the Tenure Guidelines and the SSF Guidelines for civil society organizations in Sri Lanka.

Initiatives for safe and decent work

For our next stop on the journey through the region, let’s look into social development, employment and decent work. A few recent initiatives deserve attention:

In May 2019, we in FAO co-organized an expert workshop on micro-finance, credit and insurance for small-scale fisheries in Asia together with the Asia-Pacific Rural and Agricultural Credit Association (APRACA). Out of that workshop came two guiding documents on access to insurance services and micro-finance and credit services in support of small-scale fisheries in Asia. Both guiding documents are now being implemented at national level, starting with the Philippines.

As mentioned above, we have also co-developed a practical manual on Safety at sea for small-scale fishers in collaboration with the Bay of Bengal Programme Intergovernmental Organisation. The manual is available in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Tamil.

Zooming in on Cambodia, we have worked with the Cambodian Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and the International Labour Organization to prevent child labour in Cambodia, and we have funded and given input to a research summary on social protection in small-scale fisheries, conducted by WorldFish (published online shortly). The outcomes of the study have been presented to both government authorities and development partners.

A fish market in Tacloban City, the Philippines. ©FAO/Petri Suuronen

More equitable value chains, postharvest and trade

Value chains, postharvest and trade are other important areas in the SSF Guidelines (chapter 7). We in FAO have co-organized an expert workshop on estimating food loss and wasted resources together with the Indian Council for Agricultural Research – Central Institute of Fisheries Technology (ICAR-CIFT), and we have done case studies to assess fish loss and waste in small-scale fisheries in Indonesia.

Furthermore, we held a presentation on the role of small-scale fisheries and women in the value chains as part of the celebration of the Asia-Pacific Day for the Ocean in 2019.

New EU-funded projects related to value chains, postharvest and trade are about to start for Southeast Asia. A soon to be published FAO Technical Paper titled, Securing sustainable small-scale fisheries: Showcasing applied practices in value chains, post-harvest operations and trade, examines good practices and successful initiatives consistent with the recommendations of the SSF Guidelines, and features case studies from the region.

Tackling climate change and disaster risks

FAO also makes efforts to help communities adapt to climate change and be prepared to tackle disaster risks.

After Cyclone Ockhi in late 2017 caused the deaths or disappearance of over 350 people, almost all of them fishers, FAO supported the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers’ (ICSF) efforts to help communities be better prepared. ICSF conducted a study that reviewed cyclone warning systems as well as central and state policies and plans to cope with disasters and to minimise loss of human life and livelihoods, in line with the SSF Guidelines. ICSF also organised awareness raising workshops and a film about disaster preparedness at sea.

Moving over to the Philippines, we in FAO work with the government to capacitate small-scale fishers and fish workers to adapt to climate change. We offer skill trainings on how to use alternative marine resources, improve fish handling, adopt more efficient use of fishing gear, and handle fish in ways that maximize their quality and value. We also promote and provide basic safety at sea training.

Strengthening the science-policy interface

It is necessary for national and regional policies to incorporate the principles and provisions of the SSF Guidelines to achieve the full potential of small-scale fisheries to contribute to food security and poverty eradication. To inform such policy processes, knowledge and information are needed.

An important partner of ours is the Too Big To Ignore (TBTI) research network, which has a broad research agenda on small-scale fisheries. TBTI organized the 3rd World Small-scale Fisheries Congress in Thailand in 2018 to inform the SSF Guidelines implementation.

Another FAO partner is WorldFish, an international research organization focused on the role of fisheries & aquaculture to reduce hunger & poverty. They hosted a multi-stakeholder information and communication workshop in Malaysia in 2019 with support from FAO. During one week, researchers from government institutes, development journalists and NGO activist came together to learn more about small-scale fisheries and each other’s roles and potential in improving sustainability.

FAO is partnering with WorldFish and Duke University to undertake a global study on small-scale fisheries coming later this year. Data from over 50 countries will be included in the study. The countries in Asia and the Pacific are Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Lao People's Democratic Republic, the Maldives, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam, Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu, Kiribati, Samoa, Tuvalu and the Cook Islands.

Coming back to the regional level, our regional FAO office for Asia and the Pacific and the Network of Aquaculture of Centres in Asia-Pacific co-organized a regional consultation workshop in Thailand in 2019 on demographic change in fishing communities in Asia. The Workshop explored the potential impacts of ageing, a young population, and migration in fishing communities on the fishing industry, sustainability of fishery resources, livelihoods diversification, climate change adaptation, and gender roles and relations.

Children playing at the Anlong Kagan community market of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where dried fish is displayed for sale. ©FAO/Ana Puhac

Tips for further reading

• COFI/2016/7: Securing sustainable small-scale fisheries: Towards implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Povery Eradication (SSF Guidelines).
• COFI/2016/Inf.13: Towards implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication (SSF Guidelines).
• COFI/2018/7: Small-scale and artisanal fisheries governance
• COFI/2018/Inf.17: Progress by FAO and partners concerning the implementation of the SSF Guidelines since the thirty-second session of COFI in 2016
• COFI/2018/SBD.23: Update on progress to develop the Global Strategic Framework in Support of the Implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication (SSF-GSF)
• SOFIA 2016: The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture – page 92 onwards
• SOFIA 2018: The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture – page 138 onwards
• igssf.icsf.net – a website containing efforts by the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF) to implement the SSF Guidelines

A woman casting a fishing net from a boat on the Tonle Sap River in Cambodia. ©FAO/A.K. Kimoto