WHAT WE DO
Fisheries Training
We are committed to building our members’ capacity and skills
Our work relies heavily on specialist expertise and technical work. This means we are committed to developing and building the capacity of our members to manage their own fisheries.
Important areas include fisheries knowledge, institutional arrangements and support for leadership.
When our members are empowered with these skills and this information, they can interpret and apply it to their own circumstances.
Our continuing need for training is demonstrated by our ability to implement mandates for a diverse membership that includes varying levels of development, institutional capacity and governance. When our members increase their expertise, they can then offer each other cooperative capacity building opportunities.
A key strength of our members is cooperation – reflected in regional or subregional approaches such as pooling resources for specialist skills and sharing information.
We offer sustainable fisheries training courses
We design, develop, deliver and evaluate training about sustainable fisheries. FFA training believe doing this will build capacity within Pacific Island countries in the long term.
We offer fisheries training to all our members via capacity development initiatives and their collaborative partnerships. Examples include the European Union’s Development of Tuna Fisheries in the Pacific ACP Countries (DEVFish II) projects, the AusAID Food Security and NZ MFAT Pacific Fisheries Training Programme.
We train people through the generous assistance of our various donor partners. Sometimes we jointly develop and deliver programs and courses with other Pacific regional organisations.
There is a suite of training for fisheries observers, debriefers and managers called ‘Pacific Islands Regional Fisheries Observer’ (PIRFO) courses.
We also train people in areas such as:
- Monitoring, Control and Surveillance (MCS); enforcement and compliance
- Vessel Monitoring Schemes (VMS) and Vessel Day Scheme (VDS)
- licensing
- fish inspection for competent authorities
- fisheries management
- economic analysis and bioeconomic modelling, including the National Fisheries Economics Workshop
- policy development, investment appraisal and international commerce
- international negotiations
- evidence, investigation and prosecutions
- boarding and inspection
- legal frameworks.
We partner with training institutes (such as national or regional universities, or fisheries colleges) to design courses to help our members gain accredited qualifications.
We prioritise training needs based on FFC requests
We deliver training based on requests from our members and recommendations from the Forum Fisheries Committee (FFC). Members express their needs and goals, and we consider national priorities, national context and regional training programs.
When we see a need, we work out how to deliver training given the expertise and resources available. We try to meet training needs through our existing programs – if not, we investigate other options to meet those needs.
Our staff are offered training and accreditation
At FFA training, we strive for excellence in how we deliver our work programs, and consider our staff to be our principal asset.
Only highly skilled and motivated employees can achieve the quality outcomes that we aim for, and if our staff are to continue to achieve, we need to give them training opportunities to maintain and improve their professional qualifications, accreditations and other relevant skills.
We want to combine a supportive work environment with training to help build our organisational capacity and also improve our staff’s productivity, work quality and morale.