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3.5. Human Capacity Building
The unregulated exploitation of marine and coastal resources led to a drop in catch and landings, to resources degradation and to an impoverishment of coastal communities. This
was illustrated by a decrease of the fishing contribution to the national GDP, which went from 2 to 1.8 between 2006 and 2009 as well as by a loss of marine biodiversity.
Today, all stakeholders agree on the fact that the State cannot handle by itself all issues that threaten fishery sustainability. Aware of the role they can play in the search for solutions to
problems faced by the fishery sector, management insititutions, fishery Professional Organizations POs, research and training organizations, Non-governmental organizations
NGOs and partners to development, take an increasing number of initiatives. Therefore numerous opportunities were taken through different meetings with the fishery authorities,
donors from the fishery sector and other partners to give more visibility to the program’s objectives in order to better specify expected results from the USAIDCOMFISH
intervention, especially the creation of fishery Sustainable Management Units “Unités de Gestion Durable” – UGDs. These meetings are also an opportunity for the program to create
possible synergies with other institutions working in sustainable management of fish resources.
At the same time, a series of meetings were held on the field with CLPAs and stakeholders. These exchanges led to several consultations with CLPAs coordination committies, women
processors, professionnal organizations and several other stakeholders operating on fishing sites and targeted by the program. The exchanges enabled the launch of an important
capacity building program at all levels of governance, whether on capacities of fisheries management national structures or on research or training institutions, in order to improve
fisheries information system.
These opportunities cannot be sustainably developed without a favorable fishery policy environment. In fact, fishery national policies are responsible for the development of this
favorable framework. USAIDCOMFISH will also assist in the development of this political framework both at a national and local level. Therefore, most of capacity building activities
will be conducted on FY2012.
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3.6. Cross-Cutting Themes