AFD – IORA Webinar: Initiate a capacity building programme in fish stock assessment

As part of the French Development Agency (AFD) technical assistance for the Implementation of the IORA Action Plan on Fisheries, Aquaculture and the Marine Environment, one of the specific objectives  is “to promote sustainable fisheries management”. In the context of this objective, the activity “Initiate a capacity building programmes in fish stock assessment” is planned as a response towards the IORA Action plan.  This webinar forms part of that activity.

Stock assessments provide crucial scientific information to resource managers. They play a key role in the management process by providing the scientific basis for fisheries management, setting annual catch targets and limits to ensure that stocks are not overfished, and overfishing does not occur. Unfortunately, there is a lack of understanding of these aspects for most stocks, a lack of relevant and reliable data, and a lack of stock assessment scientists directed to assessing stocks and to improving fisheries management.

One way to overcome this is through collaboration among institutions, and IORA is attempting to promote this, following the indication by numerous IORA countries of their need for capacity building in stock assessments as expressed in the IORA Working Group on the Blue Economy. A first step was to determine what stock assessment capacity exists in the IORA region and what institutions can provide capacity building. This was done by preparing a compendium of training and courses on stock assessment together with a collation and examination of responses by IORA Member States to a questionnaire on their capacity, uses, and needs for stock assessment in their country. Also, it is important to know about the availability of technical support from UN Specialised Organizations with competence in this domain (e.g. FAO/IOTC). To this end, this webinar will present the two technical reports produced with the support of the AFD on existing capacity in the field of fish stock assessment as part of the IORA Action plan and will also present on some of the work of the FAO in this domain in the IORA region.

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Title: Initiate a capacity building programme in fish stock assessment

Venue:  Virtual Meeting

Date:  Tuesday, 13 July 2021 07:00 – 09:00 (GMT)

Registration:  https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfhu5Ohtq3-cZJ1eoFqkVehPV72WSP4fhD1Lt91bkh1YehRgA/viewform?fbzx=-4018186995234577076

The webinar will be hosted by the IORA Secretariat and organized with the support of the AFD technical assistance provided by COFREPECHE. It will be introduced by the IORA Secretariat and the IORA Core Group on Fisheries Management (CGFM).

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