The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) is the lead United Nations agency for agriculture, forestry, fisheries and rural development. An intergovernmental organization, FAO has 183 member countries plus one-member organization, the European Community.
Fisheries and aquaculture are fundamental sources of food, livelihoods, trade and recreation for people around the world. Responsible global stewardship is needed to safeguard all living aquatic resources for present and future generations. The challenges to achieving sustainability of fisheries and aquaculture are global and require coordinated action. FAO is the global institution dealing with fisheries and aquaculture issues. As part of its mandate, it fosters global, regional and national sustainable development initiatives to secure responsible fisheries worldwide. Guided by its Committee on Fisheries (COFI) and the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, the FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Department works with the United Nations system and other specialized agencies, programmes and funds. The division supports all efforts to promote Blue Growth - with its emphasis on reconciling social and economic development with environmental performance - to all fisheries and aquaculture policies. It provides scientific advice, strategic planning, and training materials. Moreover, it serves as a neutral forum in bringing together relevant actors to discuss issues related to international cooperation and multistakeholder approaches to fisheries and aquaculture management
Specifically, the Department:
- makes available technical information, guidelines and standards and provides technical advice and assistance to FAO Members in enhancing fisheries and aquaculture development at the national, regional and global levels;
- facilitates FAO’s role in providing a neutral forum for States and other stakeholders to discuss global fisheries and aquaculture issues, taking into consideration the views and interests of civil society organizations and the private sector;
- contributes to the implementation of relevant United Nations General Assembly resolutions and reporting obligations on Oceans and the Law of the Sea, Sustainable Fisheries and any other special and periodic reports requested by the Assembly;
- provides assistance in the administration of global development assistance schemes, e.g. the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement (UNFSA), and the Agreement on Port State Measures
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Regional Seas and FAO
FAO plays an important role in the Regional Seas Programme. Ongoing Regional Seas Programme collaborations with FAO include
- Development of the Regional Seas Core Indicators set in collaboration with FAO and the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
- The ABNJ Deep Seas Project, led by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (UN-FAO) and United Nations Environment (UNEP) and supported by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), is a project that brings together a broad range of partners working on conservation issues in the ABNJ globally. The partnership includes the regional fisheries bodies responsible for the management of deep-sea fisheries, Regional Seas Programmes (Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), Nairobi Convention), fishing industry partners and international organizations.
- The Black Sea Commission Permanent Secretariat (BSC) has established memoranda of understanding (MoU) with FAO General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM)
- FAO is an observer in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, the Mediterranean (MAP) and the Antarctic region.
- The Commission on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) is one of the regional fisheries bodies that interacts with the FAO directly on issues such as IUU (illegal, unregulated and unreported) fishing and incident mortally of seabirds during longline fishing.
- FAO collaborates with the MAP in the framework of the SAP-BIO project on the interaction of fisheries and marine ecosystems. FAO also cooperates in the Mediterranean region on issues in relation to responsible fishing through the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM); agricultural issues through the Blue Plan Regional Activity Centre; and soil erosion issues through the Priority Actions Programme Regional Activity Centre.
- Other regional seas Conventions which have established close working relations and collaboration with FAO include PERSGA, UNEP/MAP, OSPAR, SACEP, Nairobi Convention, COBSEA,
For more, please visit their website: http://www.fao.org/home/en/
