African Voice

Stop Illegal Fishing works to strengthen the ‘African Voice’ in international fisheries fora by supporting African governments in formulating and promoting common positions in these negotiations.

Such pan‐African collaboration is important in order to ensure that international agreements better take into account African needs and contexts which in turn provide greater incentives for African nations to ratify and implement the agreements and thereby contribute to sustainable and profitable fisheries in Africa. Improving fisheries governance will bring benefits for the continent in terms of more sustainable livelihoods, increased food security, increased revenues to the national budget and long‐term viability of the fisheries sector.

Since 2007 Stop Illegal Fishing has been working with African States and partners to develop a relevant, coherent and continent‐wide voice in international fishery processes.

We have achieved this by establishing a greater legitimacy for the African Group, through strengthening the facilitating role of the African Union, NEPAD and their associated programmes and working groups, in both the preparations and through their physical representation at the negotiation

Stop Illegal Fishing have been active in a number of negotiations and fora including:

  • First Southern And Eastern African Forum To Counter IUU Fishing, 2007
  • FAO Committee on Fisheries (COFI)
  • African Union
  • The First International Symposium on FishCRIME, 2015, enabled an informed policy debates in Africa to generate home‐grown thinking on the relatively new thinking around fisheries crime
  • FAO technical consultations on voluntary guidelines or action plans, and legally binding 
agreements (FAO Compliance Agreement, FAO International Plan of Action on IUU, UN Fish Stocks Agreement, Port State Measures Agreement, FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, Flag State Performance)
  • UNCLOS and related agreements
  • UNODC
  • Chatham House IUU Update meetings

 

Recent Posts

Madagascar. One step forward towards national interagency cooperation to fight IUU fishing.

Six years after depositing its instrument of accession to the Port State Measure...

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Namibia is working to combat IUU fishing

Two months after hosting the inception meeting of the Southern African Development Community’s...

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Fortieth Meeting of the SADC Technical Committee on Fisheries

The 40th meeting of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), Technical Committee on...

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Nigeria: “Interagency cooperation is vital to increase compliance and stop fight IUU fishing”

Representatives from agencies involved in monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS) of fisheries activities...

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SIF News Categories

What impact are we having?

The Issues

One in four fish in Africa is caught illegally, this threatens the sustainability of fish stocks, damages the ecosystem and deprives governments of income and people of livelihoods.

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Our Approach

Creating change by informing policy and practice, our hands on experience and investigative work means we are often the first to spot new trends and find ways to challenge these.

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Our Initiatives

Illegal fishing is a complex issue that requires multifaceted responses. Stop Illegal Fishing are working with a range of organisations to bring about change.

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