At the “Our Ocean” conference, Southern and West Africa call for African Vigilance as a barrier against IUU fishing
16 – 18 June 2026
Sandy Davies(Senior Fisheries and Environment Director), Per Erik Bergh (Managing Director), Malebogo Mekgwe (Project Administrator) and Andréa Durighello (Fisheries Expert) attended the 11th edition of the Our Ocean Conference in Mombasa, Kenya. This Conference was held for the first time in Africa, hosted by the Government of Kenya in Mombasa under the title – Our Ocean, Our Heritage, Our Future. Within this Context, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Monitoring, Control and Surveillance Coordination Centre (MCSCC) joined force with the Fisheries Committee for the West Central Gulf of Guinea (FCWC) Regional Monitoring Control and Surveillance Centre (RMCSC) to organise a side event titled “Securing our ocean and fisheries: Regional leadership uniting for a transparent and sustainable blue African future” – supported by Stop Illegal Fishing and other technical partners of the Centres. The event featured real cases on how transparency and regional cooperation have been instrumental in tackling IUU fishing. It also included discussions around representatives of the MCSCC and the RMCSC, with high-level panelists and speakers, including Ministers or representatives of Angola, Ghana, Liberia, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria and South Africa; and regional and inter-governmental institutions such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the African Union Commission and the World Bank. This was also the opportunity for small-scale fisheries (SSF) representatives to express their voice on the importance of the MCS Centres from their perspective and on their willingness to be associated to such efforts, both at national and regional levels – in line with regional efforts to support further engagement SSF in national and regional policy processes.
