On 06-08 November, SIF was in Tema, Ghana to continue the process of developing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for risk assessment and inspection of fishing vessels. As a technical partner to the WATF, SIF has been working with Ghana’s MCS officers since 2023 – providing support in developing and testing SOPs that would be tailored to the national context and serve as lessons learnt for the whole FCWC region. At the end of the workshop – the fourth of a series of trainings and coaching sessions – MCS officers successfully validated the two SOPs, which shall now become part of their MCS toolkit.

As a Party to the FAO Agreement on port State measures to prevent, deter and eliminate illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (PSMA) since 2016 – the first legally binding instrument to fight IUU fishing – Ghana has committed to implement minimum standards and mechanisms to prevent vessels associated with IUU fishing to access its ports.

In line with this commitment, elaborating SOPs for MCS procedures for the implementation of Port State Measures has been a priority for Ghana, for which the West Africa Task Force (WATF) of the Fisheries Committee for the West Central Gulf of Guinea (FCWC) has been providing support since October 2023. Their initial focus: developing procedures for the conduct of risk assessment and inspections of vessels engaged in fishing and fishing-related activities requesting entry to the port of Tema, one of Ghana’s designated ports.

To this end, Stop Illegal Fishing (SIF) in its role as a technical partner to the WATF has been working with MCS officers in Tema to develop, test and tailor SOPs based on Ghana’s national, regional and international commitments and legal framework. Each workshop provided room for consultation and testing in the field, in the perspective to constantly improve the procedures and ensure the officers’ ownership.

Thanks to the engagement and active contribution of the officers, as well as input by agencies relevant to the process, SOPs for risk assessment and inspection were approved at this fourth workshop by all participants. The next step is to ensure their systematic integration into routine procedures by all MCS officers. Through the testing process, officers have already seen their impact: “compliance has increased massively since we started conducted systematic risk assessments and inspections of fishing vessels coming to our port”, they said. SIF will continue providing support to Tema’s officers to consolidate those achievements, notably through remote coaching.

This concrete result is a major success; however, Tema’s officers keep looking ahead. Their next priority is formalising cooperation with all agencies relevant to ensure that no vessel or fish linked to IUU fishing gets access to port and port services.

These SOPs will provide useful lessons learnt for all FCWC countries with the objective to develop regionally harmonised SOPs, assisted by the Regional MCS Centre (RMCSC). Experience from Ghana shall therefore serve as a model that could be replicated in the other countries within the region, advancing the vision of regional cooperation against IUU fishing FCWC Ministers showed when they set up the RMCSC.