Human Capacity Building TARGETED RESULTS, PLANNED ACTIVITIES, ACHIEVEMENTS AND

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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. 21

3.6. Cross-Cutting Themes