COFI36 High Level Event - Taking stock: 10 years of the SSF Guidelines
©Photo: FAO/Giuseppe Carotenuto
2024 marks the 10th anniversary of the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication (SSF Guidelines). To celebrate this milestone, a High Level Event was held on the 36th session of the Committee on Fisheries (COFI) on 8 July 2024.
The event, moderated by the FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Division Deputy Director, Ms Vera Agostini, provided the opportunity to assess the uptake of this international instrument, to share good practices on its implementation and to confirm their way forward in the context of Blue Transformation.
FAO’s Director General, Dr QU Dongyu, opened the event with a video message highlighting concrete achievements that can be seen after ten years. These include 20 countries incorporating the SSF Guidelines into their policy and regulatory frameworks and seven countries engaging in National Plans of Action for Small-Scale Fisheries. He also called on countries to commit to making small-scale fisheries an integral part of the transformation of global agrifood systems.
Six speakers were invited to share experiences about their countries. The Honourable Abdallah Hamis Ulega, Minister for Livestock and Fisheries from the United Republic of Tanzania opened the floor. He highlighted the importance of the SSF Guidelines globally, regionally and locally and expressed the interest Africa has to implement them, as small-scale fisheries are crucial to food and nutrition security and to sustain livelihoods in the region. In addition, he stressed the success of the first regional SSF Summit, hosted by the United Republic of Tanzania and called to repeat this in the future.
The Honourable Sergio Gonzalez Guerrero, Peru’s Minister of Production, presented how the country is implementing the SSF Guidelines nationally, focusing on tackling the needs and improving the opportunities of the small-scale fisheries subscetor, with the overall objective of improving food security and nutrition.
Representing the first country in the Asia-Pacific region to develop and implement a National Plan of Action for Small-Scale Fisheries (NPOA-SSF), Ms Drusila Bayate, Undersecretary for Fisheries, Department of Agriculture, Republic of the Philippines, highlighted the historical and cultural importance of small-scale fisheries in the Philipines. She highlighted the commitment of the country to implement the SSF Guidelines to improve the livelihoods of the more than 2.5 million Filipino fishers who, lately, have been impacted from climate change and related shocks.
The European Commission, represented by Ms Charlina Vitcheva, Director-General, Directorate General on Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (DG MARE), spoke on the Regional Plan of Action for Small-Scale Fisheries for the Mediterranean and Black Sea (RPOA-SSF) and on the important measures the European Union have been taking to protect small-scale fisheries rights:
“The small-scale fisheries depend enormously on secured access to resources and fishing areas. Industrial and small-scale fishers should not be in competition with each other as they mostly fish different species and they fish in different grounds, however there is ample evidence of industrial fishing vessels operating illegally in zones that are reserved for small-scale fisheries, with the negative impact of course on the resources and on the small-scale fishers themselves. This must stop and we in the European Union are committed to contribute to end this illegal practice under our Sustainable fisheries partnership agreement (SFPA) with third countries. The EU vessels are only allowed to fish surplus in the exclusive economic zones of the third countries and clearly beyond the offshore area where their artisanal fisheries happened, we are absolutely strict. This is part of our legal framework, and we ensure that it is implemented properly through these agreements”.
Ms Vitcheva also commended FAO's efforts to make the SSF Summit a genuine platform for small-scale fisheries movements and emphasized the SSF Summit's importance in supporting the implementation of the SSF Guidelines.
Ms Mahlet Mesfin, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Ocean, Fisheries and Polar Affairs, Department of State’s Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, United States of America, stated how vital this instrument is to the most important small-scale fisheries subsector and reiterated the U.S. commitment to supporting their implementation over the next decade.
To conclude, the small-scale fisheries representative Ms Lorena Ortiz, from the Mexican Confederation of fisheries and aquaculture cooperative, spoke on behalf of small-scale fisheries movements acknowledged significant achievements over the first decade but noted that fishers, fish workers, and Indigenous Peoples remain underrecognized and marginalized. She praised the SSF Summit as a relevant platform for dialogue and exchange within the small-scale fisheries community.
In his closing remarks, Mr Manuel Barange, Assistant Director General and Director of the Fisheries and Aquaculture Division, stressed the importance of honoring the first 10 years of the SSF Guidelines. He invited participants to view this milestone as a starting point for further change, stating, “The SSF Guidelines are here to stay, and this event should be a catalyst for their implementation to continue and to empower small-scale fishers to be full actors in this process”.
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