In prelude to a future Communication on Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreements (SFPAs), the European Commission has released an “Evaluation and analysis of the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreements between the EU and third countries including an in-depth analysis of the sectoral support component.”
In summary, the evaluation concludes that SFPAs are “fit for purpose”. However, it identifies several areas for improvement. Many of these relate to the implementation of the SFPAs governance framework, - like the non-discrimination clause or the transparency clause-, which are under the responsibility of the partner country. In our view, this suggests that there is a lack of commitment from some partner countries to make these fishing agreements a success.
The question the EU needs to answer for the future of SFPAs is how to convince third partner countries to further engage in their implementation?
Current Benefits for African SFPA partner countries
The EU has presently 12 Sustainable Fisheries Partnerships Agreements protocols in force with African countries. These are mainly agreements to catch tuna resources and related species, with Cabo Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Sao Tomé e Principe, Gabon, Seychelles, Mauritius, Madagascar, Senegal, and The Gambia, and two “multi-species agreements” with Mauritania and Guinea-Bissau. The EU has a further 4 “dormant” agreements with African countries, - for which there is an agreement but no protocol in force-, with Equatorial Guinea, Liberia, Morocco, and Mozambique.
“Under the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreements, 211 EU vessels catch around 300 000 tonnes per year, with 27 000 tonnes supplying domestic markets in partner countries. ”
The evaluation details the various benefits partner countries enjoyed between 2015 and 2020. During that period, SFPAs represented an annual average spending of 159 million euros, including 98 million euros as compensation for access, 28 million euros as sectoral support, and 33 million euros paid by the boat owners as access fees. The 211 vessels fishing under SFPAs caught around 300 000 tonnes per year, half of which were small pelagic species. An estimated 27.000 tons of EU catches annually supply domestic markets in the partner countries, mostly through sales of by-catches by EU tuna vessels and landings of a part of the catches from small pelagics trawlers in Mauritania, and from shrimp/cephalopods trawlers in Guinea Bissau, as contribution to food security.
The evaluation notes that ”when partner countries have ports that can accommodate industrial fishing vessels, or fish processing industries compliant with EU food law, they derive significant socio-economic benefits from SFPAs.” It could be argued, however, that in these well-equipped countries, most of these benefits, - supplying goods and services, processing fish landed-, would still exist in the absence of an SFPA.
It would have been interesting for the evaluation to look further at how SFPAs, through the sectoral support in particular, have helped some countries increase their capacities to land and process fish locally: in a country like Mauritania, where the sectoral support has been used for modernising landing and processing infrastructure for both artisanal and industrial fleets, it is clear that without the SFPA, less jobs would have been created for the local population.
A third of sectoral support monies benefitted men and women from the local fishing sector…
The evaluation details the EU contributions for sectoral support between 2015 and 2020: around 200 million euros were used mainly for infrastructure at landing sites and processing sites (24%); support to research and collection of scientific data (17%); development and implementation of national fisheries management measures (13%); contribution for MCS and fight against IUU fishing (13%); aquaculture development (10%) and safety at sea (5%). The evaluation emphasizes that 33% of the sectoral support benefitted the local fishing sector, and that these initiatives “were effective in supporting the social and economic development of the fisheries sector, and particularly the artisanal sector in partner third countries.” This covered a variety of public interventions, including:
Improvement of conditions at existing landing sites: cold storage and processing of artisanal products in Cabo Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Morocco, Senegal, and Seychelles;
Safety at sea: provision of safety equipment to artisanal fishers in countries such as Cabo Verde, Guinea Bissau, Madagascar, and Senegal;
Support to vocational training to attract and to enhance the professional skills of workers in the fisheries sector: Guinea Bissau, Mauritania, Morocco, and Seychelles;
Incentives (loans, grants) for modernisation or adaptation of artisanal fleets: Côte d’Ivoire, Mauritius, São Tomé-et-Príncipe, and Seychelles;
Development of participatory surveillance schemes involving artisanal fishing communities: The Gambia and Senegal;
Data collection schemes for artisanal fisheries to assess the contribution of the sector to national fisheries and raise awareness of the socio-economic dimensions: Cabo Verde, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Madagascar, and São Tomé-et-Príncipe.
…shame they do not know about it
However, most African artisanal fishers do not know what is done with the sectoral support money. “No representative of artisanal fishers, nor of civil society, is involved in the planning of these activities, nor in their implementation, and even less in their evaluation. Under these conditions, do not be surprised that the African public does not always have a good opinion of the European Union as a partner in the area of fisheries, while support actions carried out by other countries, such as China, are clearly identifiable by everyone,” emphasized Gaoussou Gueye speaking at this year’s LDAC event on the External Dimension of the European CFP “Today and Tomorrow: Present Challenges and Future Opportunities”.
““No representative of artisanal fishers, nor of civil society, is involved in the planning of sectoral support activities, nor in their implementation, and even less in their evaluation. Under these conditions, do not be surprised that the African public does not always have a good opinion of the European Union as a partner in the area of fisheries.””
This is echoed in the evaluation, which underlines that “the need for adequate communication and visibility plans was clearly identified by the European Commission to improve public awareness about the activities funded by the EU contribution for sectoral support, with relevant measures introduced in the framework of certain recently negotiated Protocols.”
It is essential that detailed information on what is being done with the funds from the sectoral support of fisheries agreements is made available to the public, and that stakeholders, including artisanal fishing communities, are adequately involved in the identification, implementation, and evaluation of these actions if they are to benefit these communities. That is an issue of accountability, and it could also, provided sectoral support is efficiently spent, improve the level of acceptability of SFPAs by civil society in the partner third countries.
Funding biodiversity conservation in SFPAs: Let’s do it right
Coastal fishing communities are on the frontline of climate change, which is inducing important changes in distribution, diversity, and productivity of fish resources, lowering the resilience of marine ecosystems to pressures, and therefore threatening the future of those who depend on these ecosystems for their livelihoods. Supporting livelihoods for fishing dependent communities, as well as their initiatives to restore and conserve marine eco-systems are two key areas the EU should focus on in its relations with Africa, including through SFPAs sectoral support.
Although the evaluators report that a third of the SFPAs sectoral support benefits the local fishing sector, they also underline that “activities supporting ecosystem protection represent only 2% of the total EU SFPAs sectoral support funding, amounting to 3,6 million euros.” It includes a variety of initiatives, like the protection of sharks in Cabo Verde, the depollution and immersion of shipwrecks to create artificial reefs in Senegal, or the regeneration of mangroves in The Gambia. The lion share of this amount goes however to Marine Protected Areas (MPAs).
For more than 15 years, the EU has been financially supporting MPAs through some of its bilateral fishing agreements. It started with the 2006 EU-Mauritania fishing agreement protocol, in which a fund of 1 million euros per year from the sectoral support was devoted to the country’ National Parks in the coastal areas. Noticeably, “the EU's sectoral support has enabled the State of Mauritania to become the main financial contributor to the Banc d’Arguin Park, for the first time in the Park's 30 years of existence, ahead of the traditional foreign donors and foundations." This is interesting in a context where the recent creation of MPAs, raising funds through private capital markets has been strongly criticised for encouraging the privatisation of public goods.
African artisanal fishers have often complained that Marine Protected Areas are established and managed without their free, prior and informed consent. The gradual shift towards co-management systems is a welcome step to ensure local communities’ rights are ensured and respected. Photo: Mamadou Aliou Diallo.
The EU SFPA protocol with The Seychelles does not mention the support to the country’s MPAs under sectoral support. However, it includes the creation of a Fund “for the purpose of environmental management and observation of marine ecosystems” to which EU purse seine ship-owners contribute, for an estimated amount of EUR 175 000 per year, based on the tonnage of each vessel. To this day, it is still unclear whether and how this Fund is used and whether it is at all transferred to the Seychelles Conservation and Climate Adaptation Trust (SeyCCAT), a trust established in 2015 to manage the proceeds of the Seychelles debt-for-nature swap, which provides grants “to support the stewardship of Seychelles’ ocean resources, island life and blue economy,” including for the management of MPAs. CFFA raised questions about the fact an international environmental organisation, TNC, wields a considerable power over decisions made, and how much space was left to organise a meaningful participation of fishers in the establishment and management of these MPAs.
A key issue for supporting biodiversity restoration and conservation is how, and how much, local populations are involved in such initiatives. African artisanal fishing organisations have often complained about those MPAs established and managed without them being informed, involved, or even taken into account. As pointed out by the NGO Blue ventures: “the conservation sector has frequently been associated with human rights abuses,” like in Guinea Bissau or South Africa. Fortunately, in recent years, there has been a gradual shift away from exclusionary conservation in favour of participatory approaches, such as co-management arrangements and the establishment of Locally Managed Marine Areas (LMMAs).
In that context, when considering providing funding through SFPA for biodiversity conservation, the EU should ensure that fundamental principles of full and effective participation, environmental justice, social justice, and human rights are respected. Co-management regimes for collaborative management should be encouraged, as well as funding for the transparent, gender-sensitive, establishment and functioning of LMMAs.
In addition, the social and economic costs of establishing a protected area for the artisanal fishing communities living in the vicinity of such areas must be considered. Indeed, if fishermen must avoid some protected areas and go further at sea, this has a cost in financial terms but also in terms of the added time spent by the fishermen. These costs must be compensated. EU support, through SFPAs, for Marine Protected Areas should also consider the necessary compensation of fishing communities associated costs.
The non-discrimination clause in Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreementsobliges the third country to apply the same measures for EU and all the other foreign fleets. Photo: Jo-Anne McArthur/WeAnimalsMedia.
Non-discrimination between EU fleets under SFPAs and others? Difficult to evaluate…
The SFPAs “non-discrimination clause” commits the partner country to apply the same SFPA measures to all foreign fleets. These measures include: access fees paid by fishing operators; technical measures like fishing areas authorised, time-area closures, catch composition; Monitoring, Control and Surveillance (MCS) measures, including embarkment of national observers; employment of local crews, local fish landings.
Some examples are provided in the evaluation, and show that discrimination between foreign fleets has sometimes been in favour of EU fleets, like in Guinea Bissau, where there was “a more favourable treatment for EU vessels which were exempted from landings in national ports under the 2014-2017 Protocol.” In other cases, more restrictive measures were seemingly applied to EU fleets, like in Madagascar, where EU tuna vessels were the only foreign fleet to be imposed a catch limit for sharks.
A strict implementation of the non-discrimination clause will be particularly important for local artisanal fishers when it concerns restrictive measures for access of EU fleets to some areas, or to some over-exploited resources that are also targeted by artisanal fishers. But, so far, the implementation of the non-discrimination clause is patchy in that area: the evaluation underlines that, in cases where partner countries resources face over-exploitation, the diminution of fishing opportunities for EU fleets, “while appropriate given stock status, may not be sufficient on its own to rebuild overexploited stocks if fishing effort by other fleets is insufficiently regulated by the coastal state.”
…particularly in the absence of transparency
All in all, for the evaluators, it has been difficult to assess whether the partner country granted more favorable conditions to non-EU foreign fleets than to EU fleets: “The main reason is that transparency of foreign access agreements is not yet a widespread practice worldwide, including in the partner third countries.” A “transparency clause”, whereby the partner country commits to make public any foreign fishing access agreement, has been present in several SFPAs with African countries: Cabo Verde, The Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania, São Tomé and Príncipe and The Seychelles. In some other cases, - like Cote d’Ivoire, Mauritius, Morocco-, the partner country only committed to provide information on foreign access agreements to the EU, but not to the public. Only Senegal has so far refused to include any clause in its SFPA to share information with the EU or the general public about its foreign access arrangements.
“It is difficult to assess whether the third country has granted the same conditions to non-EU foreign fleets than to the EU due to the lack of transparency, and despite the transparency clause...”
However, in practice, and despite these commitments, the evaluation underlines that “the publication of details of foreign access agreements are still the exception.” If, in 2021, Mauritania and Seychelles published detailed information on their foreign access agreements, this was done as part of their initiatives to become compliant with the Fisheries Transparency Initiative (FiTI) standard. Indeed, for Mauritania, “the SFPA transparency clause was expected to be complied with much earlier as a result of the transparency clause introduced in the 2015 Protocol.”
Generally, there is little oversight from the EU on how both clauses, - on non-discrimination and on transparency- are implemented by the partner country: “there are no examples of SFPAs Joint Committees reviewing or discussing the application of the non-discrimination clause by the partner third countries,” highlight the evaluators. Very rightly, they suggest an improved monitoring by the SFPAs Joint Committees of the application of these clauses.
Improving transparency and accountability in the signing of foreign fishing agreements, in line with the Fisheries Transparency Initiative (FiTI) standard, starts by including an article on transparency in all SFPAs, banning non-disclosure clauses in all access agreements, and publishing the reports on the use of monies for sectoral support. In the implementation of SFPAs, the non-discrimination and transparency clauses need to be given a higher priority, and be scrutinized and assessed for the whole duration of the agreement.
Making SFPAs more attractive to the partner countries: policy coherence is a must
At the root of the lack of engagement by third partner countries to consistently engage in SFPAs implementation, there is, first of all, a lack of capacity – the costs for partner countries of sustainably managing and exploiting their fisheries, as proclaimed in SFPAs joint objectives, are high, particularly for Small Islands Developing countries (SIDs), which have a huge EEZ to manage and police. The support needed to address shortcomings such as the lack of scientific data, poor MCS, goes far beyond monies, - public funds and operators fees-, available through SFPAs.
On top of SFPA monies, between 2014 and 2020, the EU committed more than 450 million euros to development cooperation programmes in the field of sustainable fisheries and aquaculture. For Africa, this was achieved through both regional programmes, - PESCAO (15 million euros), FISHGOV2 (12 million euros) and E€OFISH (28 million euros) -, and EU programs implemented at bilateral level. The SFPA evaluation confirmed that EU interventions within the framework of SFPAs were “coherent with other EU interventions affecting the fisheries sector of the partner third countries through development programs implemented at national or regional levels.” It provides numerous examples of such synergies and complementarities between the different EU interventions, including on regional control and surveillance and support to small scale fishing communities.
“The EU should streamline its actions for implementing priorities that have been identified jointly, in a transparent and participative way, in the SFPAs. This should be done through budgetary support.”
The question arises however why, on the one side, funds are lacking to address shortcomings in partners countries’ fisheries management, whilst, on the other, partners countries face so much difficulties in “absorbing” the relatively modest amounts of the sectoral support, as highlighted by the Court of Auditors in 2015. Indeed, the CFP Regulation from 2013 (article 32) requires the achievement of specific results as a condition for payments: the disbursement of the sectoral support is linked to the implementation of previously agreed actions. This is a key issue for NGOs who contend that 100% of SFPAs public funding should go, on the long term, to creating an enabling framework, - in terms of fisheries management, transparency, stakeholder’s participation, accountability-, for sustainable fisheries development in partner countries, whilst operators should pay 100% of their access costs.
The evaluators suggest that “establishing an EU formal internal mechanism for coordination, and alignment of methods for implementation of budget support” would ensure more efficiency and a better coherence between SFPAs sectoral support spending and development cooperation. We fully support this approach – in our view, in order to increase partner countries capacities to sustainably exploit and benefit from their fisheries resources, it is necessary to streamline EU actions for implementing, through budgetary support, priorities that have been identified jointly, in a transparent and participative way, in the SFPAs.
The “Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development,” a key element in the overall EU effort to implement the 2030 Agenda, which insists on coordination of policies and actions and taking into account their impacts on developing countries, should be the cornerstone of future EU partnerships for sustainable fisheries.
The EU should also continue to develop and implement comprehensive regional strategies for sustainable fisheries, as proposed in the last CFP reform. This was tested by the European Parliament for the Pacific, looking at how to ensure coherence between different EU policies, such as aid, trade, and fisheries. Such regional, sea basin, strategies should be established in a way that developing countries stakeholders are able to highlight their concerns and expectations. SFPAs have a key role to play for promoting this dialogue between the EU and developing countries stakeholders.
We have reported several cases of IUU fishing by vessels flying an EU member state flag or being owned or operated by a European company, or whose beneficial owner is an EU member state national - the EU is not applying the virtuous principles it proclaims to all vessels of EU origin. Photo: Sergey Makarevich, Wikimedia Commons.
EU vessels involved in joint ventures, chartering: Wolves in sheep’s clothing?
Contributing to the scepticism of partner countries regarding SFPAs, is the fact that the EU, and some EU member States, are not applying the virtuous principles they proclaim to all the vessels of EU origin, whether they fish under SFPAs or not.
We reported on the case of some vessels from the Latvian company Baltreids, fishing under the SFPA with Mauritania, that that were witnessed fishing in the coastal areas. The same vessels disregarded in the past obligations for embarking observers. To date, no deterring sanction has been applied to them. Recently, vessels of Italian origin, which are well known multiple offenders, were caught, again, illegally operating in The Gambia. CFFA and other CSOs had already highlighted the case of these vessels four years ago, and, at the time, we had been reassured by the European Commission that it was doing what was necessary to stop their illegal operations. Such examples give an impression of powerlessness of EU institutions to face misbehaviour by vessels of EU origin, especially when their flag state, like Italy or Latvia, are turning a blind eye.
Vessels linked to EU companies enter unsustainable or illegal fishing in particular when they can hide behind a developing country flag, like Cameroon, Angola, or Senegal. These cases show that vessels with established links to European companies are most often let off the hook. In these conditions, how could SFPA partner countries believe that the EU is honestly committed to sustainable fisheries when it itself close its eyes on unsustainable fishing perpetrated by vessels, EU flagged or not, linked to EU companies?
However, it needs to be recognized that many African countries are of the opinion that maximizing the profits from their fisheries can be gained by reflagging or chartering vessels of foreign origin, to increase interactions with local economic operators, through landing, processing, exporting fish. A case in point has been Angola, which gave the preference years ago to the constitution of joint ventures over access agreements.
These strategies have not always led to the expected results – in many cases, the constitution of joint ventures has been “in name only”, with the control of the vessel of foreign origin, its operations, its benefits, remaining firmly in foreign, - Chinese, Russian, European-, hands. Schemes such as joint ventures or chartering of vessels of foreign origin has also led to resources overexploitation, competition with the local artisanal sector and damages to the environment, particularly through incursions in the zone reserved for artisanal fishers.
“The EU should promote the development of a regulatory framework for joint ventures which ensures that they operate in a transparent way, do not compete with small-scale fishers and contribute to development. ”
To address this situation, there are two avenues the EU should follow. First, develop tools to address the cases of vessels whose owner are European, reflagged to third countries – there is a need for more information on beneficial owners. This has been called for many years by CSOs and recently echoed by OACPS Fisheries and Aquaculture Ministers, who committed to take measures either as flag states or coastal states to update and implement national legislation requiring reporting of ultimate beneficial owners of fishing vessels and companies whenever flagging or granting authorisation to fish, and maintain a register of beneficial owners of fishing vessels at the national level and to reinforce the pursuing and sanctioning for non-disclosure of beneficial owners.
The EU should also encourage its member states to fully comply with the highest international transparency standard of the FiTI, to maintain high levels of transparency about the activities of their fishing vessels, whether they are flagged in the EU or reflagged to a third country.
In the fisheries agreements, the European Union promotes the constitution of joint ventures, without giving further details. This does not seem to be a responsible attitude given the situation. We asked that the EU promote the development in African countries of a regulatory framework for joint ventures, applicable to all foreign vessels, in the catching, processing, and marketing sectors, which ensures that joint ventures operate transparently, do not compete with artisanal fisheries, and contribute to the development objectives of the country concerned.
With most SFPAs being tuna agreements, the concept of “access only to the surplus” is only applicable to the “multi species” SFPAs. Even though this only concerns a few SFPA, this does not make it easier to implement, as there is a clear need to strengthen scientific data. Photo: Carmen Abd Ali.
Do EU vessels only access the surplus of resources that cannot be caught locally?
Another sustainability issue that fuels civil society distrust vis a vis SFPAs is the identification of surplus. Under the CFP Regulation (art 31.4), SFPAs should provide EU vessels with access possibilities exclusively for the surplus of the allowable catch that cannot be caught by local fleets, and this surplus should be identified in a transparent manner based on the best available scientific information.
“How is it possible to talk about access to the surplus in the case of small pelagics in West Africa, shared resources that are still not managed in a concerted manner? For us, fishing agreements giving access to shared fish stocks between neighbouring countries should be based on scientific evidence of a surplus at the appropriate regional level.””
The evaluation clarifies that “the surplus concept is not applicable to tuna and tuna-like species which are highly migratory and mainly found in areas beyond national jurisdictions […] the determination of the tuna and tuna-like resources available for access in the framework of tuna SFPAs should take into account scientific assessments conducted at the regional level as well as conservation and management measures adopted by relevant tuna RFMOs.” Given that, nowadays, most of the SFPAs are tuna SFPAs, the concept of “access only to the surplus” is therefore only applicable to the “multi species” SFPAs.
Having it applying to only a handful of SFPAs does not make it simpler to implement, though, particularly for stocks shared between neighbouring countries, like the small pelagics in West Africa. Taking the case of the Mauritania SFPA, the evaluation notes that, when specifically asked by the Joint Committee to provide a quantitative assessment of a surplus, the 2016 Joint Scientific Committees was not able to provide such an assessment: “The main reasons given were: i) lack of comprehensive data on catch (landed and discarded) and effort for the different fleets; and ii) no established allocation key between the different coastal states sharing the same stocks.”
This is of great concern to artisanal fishers: “How is it possible to talk about access to the surplus in the case of small pelagics in West Africa, shared resources that are still not managed in a concerted manner? For us, fishing agreements giving access to shared fish stocks between neighbouring countries should be based on scientific evidence of a surplus at the appropriate regional level,” stated the president of Afrifish-net, the pan-African platform of non-state actors in fisheries, Mr. Gaoussou Gueye last May.
This is echoed in the suggestions from the evaluators, who advise to “strengthen the scientific inputs to the design of ecosystem measures and the formal identification of surplus within the framework of multispecies SFPAs.”
The EU should engage at international level towards transparent, fair, and sustainable access arrangements
In SFPA partner countries, there is also a lack of political will to implement restrictive SFPA conditions, in a context where other distant water fishing nations, in particular China, offer “no strings attached” funds in exchange for access to their fisheries. Without a change in attitude on the part of these other distant water fishing countries, with regard to sustainability and governance, it will be difficult to convince SFPA partner countries to comply more fully with the restrictions on access, transparency and accountability introduced in these agreements. This issue has been discussed in other for a, such as the EU Long Distance Fisheries Advisory Council which advocated for an increased “coordination of multilateral and bilateral cooperation mechanisms, trade-based measures and on global fisheries transparency policies, including in RFMOs and with other key ocean players such as Japan and the United States of America to leverage market power to push China to achieve the necessary reforms of its fisheries governance framework.”
Recently, the European Parliament Fisheries Committee also adopted a report on “The implications of Chinese fishing operations on EU fisheries and the way forward,” which calls for continued dialogue both bilaterally with China, and at multilateral level (within the FAO, RFMOs and WTO) to achieve more sustainable and better regulated fisheries wherever they operate, including through their fisheries access arrangements, - mainly joint ventures and chartering, in Africa.
At international level, the discussion on how global players are involved in fisheries access arrangements is garnering speed. The UNGA resolution has requested for some years that access arrangements should be transparent, sustainable, and fair, arguing that developing coastal States legitimate expectation to fully benefit from the sustainable use of the natural resources of their exclusive economic zones should be duly taken into account.
In 2022, the FAO published a report on access arrangements, which mapped the main access agreements to marine capture fisheries in waters under foreign jurisdiction, with a particular focus on developing countries. It was announced that this was a first phase of a comprehensive study on the analysis of access arrangements, the objective of which will be to facilitate the identification of opportunities to improve the benefits from access arrangements for developing countries.
The EU should promote and actively participate to this international debate on making access arrangements fair and sustainable. The newly formed FAO sub-Committee on fisheries management could be an ideal forum to do so.
In a nutshell: some avenues to pursue to make SFPAs more attractive to partner countries
Making future SFPAs more attractive for partner African countries involves several key considerations to ensure that these agreements are fair, sustainable, and provide tangible benefits to local populations. To achieve this, the EU should increase its efforts so that SFPAs:
Promote sustainable fisheries
In line with the CFP (art. 17), allocation of access within SFPAs should be prioritized for those who fish sustainably from an environmental point of view, provide accurate information on their operations, contribute the most (particularly through landings, crewing) to partners countries food security, jobs creation, access to raw material for women fish processors. As most SFPAs are nowadays for tuna access, this means that the EU should also promote this approach in tuna RFMOs.
In mixed SFPAs, zoning negotiated should ensure the protection of vulnerable marine eco-systems, and the protection of local artisanal fishing fleets operations. SFPA sectoral support should be used for transparent, participative fisheries management, and conservation measures.
Promote transparency and stakeholders’ participation
The EU should encourage meaningful and informed participation from all stakeholders, including local fishing communities and civil society, to SFPAs negotiations and implementation (including for sectoral support use).
The EU should further encourage all the EU member states, as well as SFPA partner countries, to fully comply with the highest international transparency standard of the FiTI, to achieve and maintain high levels of transparency on the management of African marine fisheries and the activities of fishing vessels from EU and non-EU origin.
Ensure that African countries derive significant economic and social benefits from fisheries
The EU/EU Member States should promote investments in infrastructure development in African host countries, particularly for the small scale sector, - building or improving fishing ports, cold storage facilities, transportation networks, access to water and electricity (solar power) for coastal communities. This would encourage the development of local and regional seafood markets supplied by artisanal processed fishing products.
The EU should work with the partner country to defining a set of principles for fishing joint ventures or joint ventures for factories processing fish into fishmeal, as part of the SFPA, to ensure such joint ventures are sustainable, operate in a transparent manner and do not enter in competition with coastal communities (access to fish by fishers, access to raw material by women processors).
Ultimately, SFPAs are only one piece in the EU toolbox of policies towards African countries. The key to making fisheries partnership more attractive for African countries is to prioritize sustainability, equity, and the well-being of local communities while fostering international cooperation and responsible fisheries management. In the spirit of Policy Coherence for Development, this should be pursued in SFPAs as well as in other EU (and EU Member States) interventions in African fisheries (Aid, Trade, Investments, Blue economy).
Banner photo: Two fishers on Lake Victoria, Uganda, by Hennie Stander.
Organisations representing European and African fisheries stakeholders sent a joint advice to both the African Union and the European Union, looking at how EU policies, in particular SFPAs, could be better used to promote women’s activities in the African fisheries sector.