By Fatou B. Cham, Information Officer, MoFWR-NAMs
The Ministry of Fisheries has recently launched shared Sardinella project that seeks to support the implementation of the ecosystem approach to fisheries for the management of Sardinella shared stocks in West Africa.
The framework of the EAF-Nansen Program that aims to support the implementation of the ecosystem approach to fisheries for the management of Sardinella shared stocks in West Africa.
The Shared Sardinella project is made up of a regional framework and national projects. Four countries are involved: The Gambia, Morocco, Mauritania and Senegal. The regional framework was made up of regional activities, common to all countries and implemented in a concerted and coordinated manner.
The national projects defined in a letter of agreement (LoA), falls within the regional framework, but have activities specific to the countries, in order to respond to the particular issues and local specificities in terms of research and development with a view to harmonize the management of Sardinella in regional coherence.
Speaking during the launching ceremony, Merete Tandstad, EAF Nansen Program coordinator, emphasized the importance of this project for the sustainable management of Sardinella in Senegal and North West Africa.
For her part, Anna Mbenga Cham, Director Department of Fisheries disclosed that the LoA was signed between the Ministry of Fisheries The Gambia, and FAO on November 2020 and later amended in January 2021, to reduce the budget of the project in order to remain within the threshold limit applicable for LoA under the FAOR authority.
“Now that the project is finally being launched, please be assured that the Department of fisheries will do its utmost to ensure that the project monitoring team here in Banjul is accorded all the necessary support to successfully implement the activities of this project”, she said.
Madam Cham stated that the Sardinella shared project is the second most landed fish species in the Gambia; together with Bonga it constitutes more than 60% of the annual catch.
She further revealed that thousands of women and youth are either directly or indirectly employed along various links of its value chain.
The Shared Sardinella project could not have come at a better time, the director narrated, adding that for far too long, The Gambia among other countries in the Sub region have experienced insufficiency of certain types of fisheries data, most especially biological and length data on small pelagic fish including Sardinella Spp.
Matthieu Bernardon gave a synthetic presentation of the shared Sardinella project and regional and national activities.
He recalled on the consultation process that led to the development of shared Sardinella project documents at regional and national level.
He stated that the regional project and national projects are structured into two main components which include the development of capacities and knowledge on resources and fisheries in support of management processes.
“According to the principles of the EAF, development, implementation and monitoring of harmonized management systems at the regional level.” He added.
Mr. Momodou S. Jallow informed that there were within the Ministry of Fisheries, people in charge of communication. The contacts of these people will be transmitted on to the project.
Concerning gender, he explained that creating a specific unit in the Ministry was a priority. “In that sense, this could be a valuable contribution of the project, to support the creation of the gender unit in the fisheries ministry,” he added.
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