Problem analysis - General
The marine fisheries in the involved countries are of a diverse nature. Namibia’s fisheries are almost completely industrial while countries like Angola and Senegal also have important artisanal fisheries.
All countries have government institutions responsible for fisheries management, including research institutions, which are responsible for setting a framework for the fishing activities in the form of advice on total allowable catches, licenses and quotas and for enforcing that the fisheries laws and regulations are adhered to.
Sustainable utilization of natural, renewable resources is official policy in all of the countries. However, when the authorities reduce quotas to avoid overfishing, they come under heavy pressure from the fishermen. The socio-economic consequences of reduced activities can be serious and the best guarantee against excessive fluctuations in quotas, is to have the best possible knowledge of the fish resources. Namibia is an excellent example of how the authorities have been under pressure, but managed to balance the short-term and the long-term considerations in a reasonable manner, first and foremost on a background of information provided by the fisheries researchers.
Namibia, South Africa and Morocco have relatively solid economies, even if the distribution of wealth is very unequal, while the economic potentials of Angola, Senegal and Mauritania are less developed. The different nature of the fisheries also contributes to making the challenges facing the fisheries administrations different.
A short summing up of the situation is:
- Angola’s fisheries administration suffers from several constraints, caused by political difficulties over the last decades. Sustainability of development assistance is negatively affected given that both overall social infrastructure and the institutional framework are weak.
- Namibia has over the last decade managed to establish a well functioning fisheries administration that has become a model for other developing countries, not the least because it has introduced a system of fees, which contributes to the economy of the fisheries administration. That industrial fisheries dominate makes the administration simpler than in other countries. Inclusion of earlier underprivileged groups in research and management is still an important task.
- South Africa has long had a well-established fisheries administration, including fisheries research, but is facing a great challenge with respect to including earlier underprivileged groups in research and management, the distribution of resources and the implementation of its new fisheries legislation.
- The countries in Northwest Africa have incomplete information and control systems to adequately regulate the fishing activities in their waters. Data from earlier cruises by 'Dr. Fridtjof Nansen' are not being fully used, with Morocco as an exception.
- Countries in both regions also have the major challenge to manage shared stocks with neighbouring countries.
Common for all the countries is that they, in a short perspective, need assistance to provide the best possible background for setting of sustainable quotas and, in the longer perspective, assistance to train future fisheries managers and researchers and to strengthen their institutions. This institutional strengthening will have a time frame of not less than 5 - 10 years. In any case, a precondition for institutional strengthening to succeed is that the public sector in a given country is sufficiently efficient to take advantage of aid development efforts.
Institutional cooperation
All support to developing countries through the Nansen Programme will have the character of institutional cooperation, with the CDCF being the entry point to Norwegian institutions.
Support through the Nansen Programme has as the immediate objective to provide the cooperating countries with a solid base for its fisheries management, and as development objective to assist the countries to build and/or strengthen the capacity and competence of the local institutions necessary to maintain and broaden this base.
The immediate objective can be reached in a reasonably short time, with the Norwegian institutions given a large part of the responsibility for the work. The development objective, however, can only be reached through a close collaboration between Norwegian and local institutions where the local institutions gradually take on more and more responsibility and in the end are completely in charge of the work. The biggest challenge for the Norwegian institutions is not to reach the immediate objective, but to remain in the cooperation until the development objective has been secured.
Cooperation with FAO
Through its continuous contacts with representatives and scientists from all of its member states, plus those from various Inter-Governmental Organisations (IGOs) and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) FAO is uniquely placed with respect to awareness and knowledge about the ongoing need in a number of developing countries for various inputs of external assistance to enable them to plan and conduct further surveys of the marine environment as well as the analyses of the data collected and application of the results in the formulation of appropriate management measures.
Such work corresponds to a number of priorities set by the UN conference on the Environment and Development (UNCED), by the World Food Summit and the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries. These tasks are reflected in FAO's Medium Term Plan 1998-2003. Within this context FAO experts are involved in advising in the formulation and implementation of sub-regional studies, and in reviewing the relevance of the new findings to other regions and sub-regions of the world's oceans.
FAO's role in this phase of the Nansen Programme has been strengthened. The cooperation concentrates on the following four areas:
a) strategic input concerning the identification of relevant programme activities, particularly advice to NORAD in proposing a suitable geographic and technical focus for the Nansen Programme after the year 2003;
b) coordination and implementation of follow-up activities to the fish stock assessment work undertaken in the Canary Current zone of Northwest Africa;
c) technical advice and logistic backstopping upon request from the national Steering Committees in Angola, Namibia and South Africa.
d) Planning and organisation of surveys using the DR. Fridtjof Nansen requested by countries that are outside the group of main cooperating countries that are selected by Norway.
Use of 'Dr. Fridtjof Nansen'
The Dr. Fridtjof Nansen is one of the world’s most advanced fisheries research vessels. It cost nearly NOK 100 mill to build in 1992-93, and it costs today approximately NOK 2.5 mill per month to operate. The vessel is registered in NOR, i.e. the Norwegian ships register and has therefore an entirely Norwegian crew. Namibian cadets come in addition to the regular crew and perform duties as part of a training programme in co-operation with the Namibian Government.
When comparing “Dr. F. Nansen” with a similar vessel operated by IMR, i.e. Johan Hjort, the higher costs of the former (about 20%) can be explained by higher travel costs for the Norwegian crew to and from the vessel, transport of goods and spare parts from Norway, higher fuel prices, port fees, communications and ship’s agents costs. IMR’s efficiency in running research vessels was evaluated by an independent consultancy firm in 1999. The report, available at IMR, indicates a satisfactory performance by the IMR’s fleet management unit.
Given the high running costs, it could be argued that the vessel should be used where the outputs will have the largest potential value. The marine areas off northwest and southwest Africa are among the most productive in the world and for most of the countries involved, fisheries play an important role both the national economy and as a source of proteins for the population.
Until otherwise decided by NORAD, it remains that the vessel for the next few years shall assist the coastal states of Southwest Africa and Northwest Africa. In addition to different stock measurements and more environmentally directed research, the vessel will also be used for training purposes.
Planning of the surveys takes place in connection with the Steering Committee meetings where partner institutions forward their survey needs. A detailed planning of the survey takes place both by correspondence and a few days before the survey takes place. This is so for the northwest African countries, where ad-hoc meetings are organised prior to the survey with participation of all the institutions involved and FAO. About 100 hours have been allocated for the cruise leader to dedicate to post-processing of the data and finalisation of survey reports. This should take place preferably in the countries concerned or at IMR, with participation of the national cruise leader.
In the later years some new developments have taken place relevant to fisheries management worldwide, including the “Reykjavik Conference on Responsible Fisheries in the Marine Ecosystem” (2001) and the “World Summit on Sustainable Development” (WSSD, Johannesburg, 2002). These events have marked a change in the way fisheries management should be conceived and practised. The concept of sustainability is to be applied not only to the exploited resources but to the whole ecosystem, fisheries management should be part of a more holistic and integrated management system and stakeholders, a group that should also include those not directly involved in the fishery sector but yet with stakes in the marine environment, should take more active part in the decision making process. The WSSD indicated 2010 as a deadline to be met worldwide in implementing the ecosystem approach. Obviously these objectives are quite ambitious and developing countries have already indicated the urgent need for support in trying to meet this deadline.
Important developments have taken place in the countries and regions where the Nansen Programme has been operating: the war in Angola is now over and the country is reconstructing its infrastructure, institutions, management and administrative systems. Namibia is experiencing a drain of institutional memory and senior competence through resigns. This is compensated by recruitment of new and competent scientists, but still lacking the necessary experience. The same pattern is observed in South-Africa where the main research institute has lost much key personnel in later years. The regional BENEFIT programme is now fully established and is the main channel for marine research outside the direct assessment and monitoring work, which remains the responsibility of the national research institutions. The BCLME programme started its project implementation phase in 2003. BENEFIT has become the executing agency for the marine research related projects funded by BCLME.
In North-West Africa, Morocco, Mauritania and Senegal have recently received research vessels from Japan. Despite a few logistic problems to be solved and a need for intercalibration work, they should be able within a short time, to take over the responsibility for the time series on small pelagic fish until now collected by R/V Dr. Fridtjof Nansen.
Project descriptions
The programme implementation mechanisms, through steering committees, will remain unchanged for the period 2004-05 as regards activities in Angola, Namibia, South Africa, BENEFIT, and North-west Africa, the latter executed in close collaboration with FAO. It will be the responsibility of the steering committees to phase out the present engagements of the Nansen Programme over a period of two years and to consolidate the achievements made.
