This result will be achieved through a combination of policy initiatives carried out at national level with the Ministry of Fisheries and Fisheries Commission and with significant stakeholder engagement. National activities, especially concerning small pelagic stocks, will also need to be coordinated at the Guinea Current Regional scale. Law enforcement and child labor and trafficking activities will take a two-track approach with national policy level components coupled to field efforts. Strengthening law enforcement capacities will reach down to each coastal region and the two enforcement command groups for the Western and Eastern coastal regions. With regard to the child labor and trafficking, the field focus is in the Central Region, where this practice is considered most pervasive.

Currently, the SFMP is assisting the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development and its Fisheries Commission is in the process of drafting a bill that will replace the current Fisheries Act of 2002 and its Amendments.

The website for reviewing and commenting on draft materials is here:

• Revising Ghana’s Fisheries Act

A full listing of Policy related documents can be found here:

Sustainable Fisheries Management IR 1 Policy Documents

Key SFMP publications include:

• SFMP Series Of Action Option Briefs
• Fisheries Management Plan Of Ghana: A National Policy For The Management Of The Marine Fisheries Sector, 2015-2019
• National Coastal Planning Workshop
• Subsidies In Ghana’s Marine Artisanal Fisheries Sector.
• Fisheries And Food Security: A Briefing From The USAID/Ghana Sustainable Fisheries Management Project, January 2018
• USAID/Ghana SFMP Anti Child Labor And Trafficking Field Survey Report
• Multi-Stakeholder Workshop To Design A Citizen Watch On Water Initiative For Fisheries Co-Management In Ghana

The SFMP will support consultation processes for the development of policies as to what the Ministry of Fisheries /Fisheries Commission hope to achieve within the guidelines of the Fisheries Act (625) and its subsequent amendments.
Key outcomes and results expected over the Life of the Project include the following:

• Recommendations for the amendment of the Fisheries Act amended with explicit language for co-management and use rights
• Strategies for fishing capacity reduction and fuel subsidy phased-out debated and policy options presented to the Ministry of Fisheries and Fisheries Commission
• Policy recommendations concerning ways to reduce child labor and trafficking presented to the National Child Labor Steering Committee
• Significant decrease in Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing through increase of arrests made and successful prosecutions that act as real deterrence and coerce more compliant fishing behavior
• Advances made toward fostering regional leadership to attain a harmonized trans-boundary response to small pelagics stocks.