Regional fishing industry workshop in the Jewel

The fisheries industry is the fourth largest foreign exchange earner and over two thousand persons depend directly on fishing to earn a living. Today, CARICOM delegates of the African, Caribbean and Pacific group involved in the management of the industry converged at the Princess Hotel for a needs assessment workshop. The two-day workshop entitled ACP Fish Two is a four and a half year program funded by the European Commission under the ninth European Development Fund. It will operate at a cost of over forty-four and a half million U.S. dollars of which CARICOM will receive fifteen percent. The objective of the program is to improve fisheries policies and management, reinforce control strategies to enhance food security.

Gustavo Miranda, Programme Coordinator, ACP Fish II
“Because this program is a demands driven program, we want to have the countries’ opinion, identify its needs in terms of the specific objective of the program, which is to strengthen fisheries management in the Caribbean area. During these two days, we will have working groups trying to establish some sort of a plan of action for intervention of the program in terms of defining the first work plan for the next one and a half year.”

Beverly Wade, Fisheries Administrator
“We are looking at in Belize that those interventions would be in strengthening the management systems that are in place, to look at enforcement, to look at illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, to look at the development of strategies and policies that are geared toward further fisheries development and responsible development at the end of the day. So we are hopeful that with this project, we would have moved three steps more in the direction of having a more robust framework in place that will further ensure a viable industry for Belize. As a developing country we all experience the same challenges as in the region and that is why the E.U., under the ninth development fund, has said now we are going to apportion a certain amount of money to help these developing countries with having stronger management systems in place.”

Gustavo Miranda
“It is technical assistance and training to increase capacity of concerned countries developing their institutional strengthening in fisheries management. It’s not about investments, it’s not about equipment, it’s about human resources; training human resources, provision of human resources, provision of expertise to help to support the development of fisheries management in the countries.”

There are six regional facilitation units—one of which is located in Belize—that will coordinate activities and initiatives of the program in CARICOM countries as well as Cuba and the Dominican Republic.