The Fisheries Committee for the West Central Gulf of Guinea (FCWC), an intergovernmental organization with its headquarters in Tema, Ghana, has set up its Regional Monitoring, Control and Surveillance Centre (RMCSC), a new centre for monitoring fishing and related activities in the Gulf of Guinea.
On 12May 2021,FCWC Chairperson and current Minister of Agriculture, Livestock, and Fisheries for Benin, M. Gaston Dossouhoui; and the Ambassador of the European Union Delegation to Ghana, Diana Acconcia; in the presence of Ghana’s Minister for Fisheries and Aquaculture Development, Mavis Hawa Koomson will officially witness the launch of the centre.
“The establishment of the Regional MCS Centre fulfils a number of long sought-after goals, including: to improve national and regional capacity in fisheries enforcement; greater information-sharing; to reduce costs to member states; and to increase oversight of vessel activity to addresses global challenges in combating illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and related fisheries crimes.
The RMCSC’s establishment brings us a step closer to having coordinated approaches to joint action, including patrols for better security in the maritime domain of our region.” says Seraphin Dedi, Secretary-General of the FCWC.
The RMCSC develops and supports vessel monitoring and analysis to support coordinated efforts of fisheries inspection at port and at sea.
It will also host a regional record of authorised fishing vessels to maintain an up to date and easy to access list of authorised and IUU listed fishing vessels.
The RMCSC will also coordinate regional and joint at-sea patrols, to identify vessels operating illegally, without authorisation, or in contravention of national or regional conservation and management measures, undertake regional observer programme to enforce compliance as well as training and capacity building.
The RMCSC has been established under the European Union-funded Improved Regional Fisheries Governance (PESCAO) project to allow Member States to track and monitor fishing activities across the region.
The RMCSC has been operational since April 2020, and is located in the Fisheries Research Institute Building, in Tema.
The Fisheries Committee for the West Central Gulf of Guinea (FCWC) is an intergovernmental body established in 2007, with a Secretariat hosted in Tema, Ghana. The FCWC facilitates cooperation in fisheries management between its member countries: Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin, and Nigeria.
The countries have several shared fish stocks and identified a need for cooperation and shared management of these resources.