Fourth in-person coaching of Angolan MCS officers through the SADC Atlantic Project

July 2025 — Per Erik Bergh (CEO and Managing Director), Noa Senete (MCS Expert) and Andréa Durighello (Fisheries Expert) travelled to Angola for a fourth in-person training of MCS officers from Luanda as part of the Project SADC Atlantic.

The Project, now in its closing phase, has been supporting the MCSCC and SADC countries to build capacity through four core areas: to check, validate, analyse and integrate. By building capacity in these areas, supported by tools and procedures, the objective was to support the countries in developing strong engagement in the regional centre and through this contribute to regional efforts to stop illegal fishing. 

After one and a half years of Project and three training courses in Luanda and Lobito, the results of these trainings are visible. Angola has been instrumental in providing intelligence that led to the identification of IUU fishing incidents, in the SADC region and beyond in West Africa.

This coaching session in July 2025 was an opportunity to re-emphasize the importance of conducting risk assessments on fishing vessels before they are authorised to enter port, based on a standardised risk assessment tool promoted through the MCSCC. These procedures will feed into a regional workshop aimed at harmonising risk assessment procedures and these will be presented at the MCSCC Operational Task Force meeting in October 2025, with the potential to inform SADC-wide procedures—a step towards achieving the MCSCC’s goal of harmonised MCS systems across the region.