In collaboration with the Oak Foundation, WorldFish will be hosting Towards resilient and equitable smallscale fisheries meeting from 3rd to 5th September 2019 in WorldFish headquarters, Penang.

The event is supported by a collaboration between the Oak Foundation and WorldFish through the CGIAR Research Program on Fish-Agri Food Systems (FISH). The meeting will convene sixty representatives from SSF research, civil society, intergovernmental agency and non-government organizations and aims to lead the discussions on the emerging new frontiers for small-scale fisheries.

As part of this, WorldFish is leading an initiative to ensure the policy commitments and investments made to support small-scale fisheries (SSF) are leveraged towards environmental management, food and nutrition security, poverty alleviation, equitable and good governance. The initiative seeks to give greater visibility to, and better coordination of, the efforts of multiple actors working towards these outcomes, with the ultimate view to:

  • Increased capacity to coordinate and build collective action among multiple actors to maximize progress towards common goals;
  • Deliver strategic communication leading to greater recognition in policy and investment decisions for the contributions of SSF;
  • Improve collaborative capacity to understand the impacts of investments and institutional innovations towards more resilient SSF.

During the three days, non-government organizations, fisher non-state actor platforms, intergovernmental agencies and research organizations will identify and refine areas for complementarity and synergy in order to best support resilient SSF and inclusive ocean, water and landscape governance. The objective of this workshop is to design and launch a global initiative to support implementation of the ‘Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication’, ensuring the policy commitments, actions and investments made to support small-scale fisheries (SSF) around the globe successfully achieve common end goals in the areas of environmental management, food and nutrition security, poverty alleviation, and equitable and good governance.