African fisheries and aquaculture can benefit from shared best practices and experiences as well as increased coordination between partners and initiatives. This was the core of discussions held last week at a side event during the 31st Session of the FAO Committee on Fisheries. Over 100 participants attended the meeting which featured presentations spanning activities undertaken in Lake Chad countries to innovative fish processing techniques.

Countries took a major step forward in the fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing today as they endorsed a set of international guidelines that will hold states more accountable for the activities of fishing vessels flying their flags.

The FAO Voluntary Guidelines for Flag State Performance spell out a range of actions that countries can take to ensure that vessels registered under their flags do not conduct IUU fishing, one of the greatest threats to sustainable fisheries and related livelihoods.

ountries today endorsed a set of wide-reaching guidelines that will boost the already vital role of small-scale fishers in contributing to global food security, nutrition and poverty eradication.

The Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication are designed to support the world's millions of small-scale fishers, particularly in developing countries, by promoting their human rights and safeguarding the sustainable use of the fishery resources they depend upon for their livelihoods.

At a side event today held on the occasion of the 31st Session of the Committee on Fisheries (COFI), Árni M. Mathiesen, Assistant Director-General, Fisheries and Aquaculture Department, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and June Pierce Youatt, Provost and Executive Vice President, Michigan State University (MSU), signed a letter of intent to work in partnership on inland fisheries programs including a conference, visiting scholars, internships, and new learning opportunities.

“Inland fisheries provide a crucial source of protein as well as income for millions in the developing world,” Mathiesen said. “We welcome the support of Michigan State University in taking a global, multidisciplinary approach to address the common challenges that face sustainable inland fisheries all over the world.”.

“We are fortunate in the State of Michigan to have some of the world’s outstanding inland fisheries, so it is only natural that Michigan State University take a leadership role in working through the United Nations to promote the value and sustainability of the world’s inland fisheries resources,” Youatt said.

The first of these projects is Freshwater, Fish, and the Future, an international conference to be held at FAO headquarters 26-30 January 2015. The Global Conference on Inland Fisheries will take a groundbreaking, global, multidisciplinary approach to inland water issues with a focus on fish and fisheries for food security, livelihoods, and their role in aquatic ecosystems. A cross-sectoral effort to raise the profile of inland fisheries, the conference seeks to better incorporate fish into agricultural, industrial, recreational, and urban land use and water resource planning through development of improved assessment frameworks and value estimation in the context of global change adaptation.

The partnership also establishes the Robin Welcomme Visiting Scholar program, in which MSU will host an exceptional senior scholar in freshwater fisheries resources. The scholar program will contribute to and enrich the MSU community's intellectual endeavors and international portfolio on the ecology and management of global inland freshwater fisheries. In addition, a new internship program will link the best of FAO mentors with the best of MSU’s graduate students, developing future globally-thinking fisheries professionals. Finally, the partnership will establish advanced learning opportunities on global inland fisheries and aquatic ecosystems through the development of online and distance learning courses and lectures.

Norway is to build one of the most advanced research vessels in the world as part of an ongoing project with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to support developing countries improve the management of their fisheries.