CFFA urges the EU to align its 2028–2034 budget with its commitments to sustainable development and ocean governance. Support for African small-scale fisheries must be anchored in transparency and based on inclusive, equitable partnerships.

In this article, CFFA highlights the Indian Ocean archipelago’s small-scale sector’s concerns and demands in light of the ongoing negotiations for the new EU-Sechelles Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreement (SFPA) protocol.

At the occasion of the 20th session of the FAO subcommittee on trade, more than 19 CSOs and small-scale fisheries organisations, the signatories ask that FAO and its members adopt “blue food systems” that align with the ecosystem-based approach, the principles of social equity and animal welfare, and that they stop supporting the mass production of seafood through industrial feedlot aquaculture without consideration for the environment or local communities.

In this position paper, CFFA contributes to the Commission open consultation on an EU strategy for fisheries external action. In it, CFFA calls for a strategy that looks into policy coherence for development, including a focus on food security, the importance of participation of stakeholders and of including human rights safeguards. In the second part of the position, CFFA looks at the coherence in the resources put forward to fund this external strategy, as essential for effective action. 

FAO and its members should ensure that trade rules are fair, that investments go into infrastructure and services that communities themselves have identified, that women’s and youth’s contributions are fully valued, and that binding social and environmental protections underpin every initiative.

Encouraging the reform and enlargement of the Inshore Exclusive Zone (IEZ) in Liberia would reinforce the EU leadership on responsible fisheries governance and build on recent regional trends, such as the IEZ expansion in Ghana and the Senegalese government commitment to enlarge the area reserved to artisanal fishers.