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Angola’s regional commitment to combat IUU fishing shows impacts in the SADC and beyond

From 28–30 July in Luanda, Angola, the fourth and final in-person training under the SADC Atlantic Project took place—marking the conclusion of national workshops delivered through this flagship initiative of the SADC Monitoring, Control and Surveillance Coordination Centre (MCSCC). Throughout the project, the focus has been on building the capacity of MONICAP, the MCS department within Angola’s Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources, while also supporting Angola’s growing role in regional cooperation through the MCSCC. Since the project’s inception, Angola has played a vital role in providing intelligence that has helped identify illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing activities across the SADC region and into West Africa. As the first phase of the project draws to a close, Stop Illegal Fishing (SIF) remains committed – alongside the MCSCC – to supporting Angola in sustaining and strengthening these achievements.

Since taking office, H.E. Minister Carmen dos Santos, Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources, has made combatting IUU fishing a national priority. The Minister remains firmly committed to ensuring Angola is well equipped to tackle this challenge through a strong legal and procedural framework that reflects the country’s regional and international commitments to sustainable fisheries. One such commitment is Angola’s ratification in 2019 of the Charter establishing the MCSCC – a key SADC institution that supports information sharing among MCS managers across the region. Since the MCS Charter came into force, Angola has played an active role in providing intelligence on fishing vessels to other countries in the SADC and beyond, thus enabling the region to better anticipate, and address, risks of IUU fishing.

These achievements have been supported by targeted training and mentoring of national MCS officers under the SADC Atlantic Project, delivered in Angola as well as in Namibia and South Africa. The logic behind this approach is that stronger national MCS capacity leads to more meaningful and effective participation of Atlantic coast countries in regional efforts to combat IUU fishing through the MCSCC. After 18 months of activities and three training sessions in Luanda and Lobito, the impact is becoming evident.

In recent months, the Project team has been coaching Luanda’s MCS officers to apply tools and procedures introduced during the trainings, with particular attention to supporting Angola’s implementation of the FAO Port State Measures Agreement (PSMA). The July 2025 coaching session was an opportunity to reinforce the use of risk assessments on fishing vessels prior to port entry, and to familiarise officers with the risk assessment tool promoted by the MCSCC. These procedures will feed into a regional workshop aimed at harmonising risk assessment procedures and these will be presented at the MCSCC Operational Task Force meeting in October 2025, with the potential to inform SADC-wide procedures—a step towards achieving the MCSCC’s goal of harmonised MCS systems across the region.