Institutional Reform

Institutional Reform will provide support to countries to reform and realign their fisheries administrations and arrangements for inter-departmental liaison relating to oceanic fisheries and to establish or strengthen consultative processes with stakeholders.  Priorities identified by the national missions for this sub-component included institutional restructuring and strengthening reviews, typically responding to new policy directions set out in national management plans.  The project document background described the development of successful models for institutional change, including the kind of self-financing authority adopted in the Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands and Papua New Guinea.

Institutional Reform will also provide support for the establishment or strengthening of cooperation between national non-governmental stakeholders so that they can participate more effectively in oceanic fisheries management affairs.  This is specifically aimed at providing support to the establishment and strengthening of associations of fishers, both industrial and small scale in ways that will enable them to have a more effective voice on issues that affect them, especially those related to the Convention, responding to one of the major concerns raised during the national missions.