The FCWC Regional Register of Authorized Fishing Vessels (RRAFV) taking shape

May 2025 — Sandy Davies (Senior Fisheries and Environment Director) and Andréa Durighello (Fisheries Expert) travelled to Lomé, Togo for the eighteenth meeting of the West Africa Task Force (WATF) of the Fisheries Committee for the West Central Gulf of Guinea (FCWC).

As a Technical partner to the WATF, SIF had supported national consultations for the elaboration of the Regional Record of Authorized Fishing Vessels (RRAFV), a commitment by the FCWC Ministers in charge of fisheries, which the WATF was tasked to establish.

The meeting was used to share the findings of those consultations, which were conducted in line with the 2025/2026 Roadmap “Towards an FCWC RRAFV”, as approved by FCWC’s Advisory and Consulting Committee in December 2024 in Monrovia, Liberia. They focused on three core areas: scope (vessels eligible for the RRAFV), fees, and regional alignment.

The WATF RRAFV consultations provided insightful information for the WATF meeting participants, who used the findings to make concrete recommendations on the framework of the Regional Record. More and more, the WATF is drawing the outlines of the RRAFV.

In advancing the process, the WATF will capitalise on the common experience of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The MCSCC, represented for the first time in a WATF meeting by the Chair of the MCSCC Board of Directors, shared insights on the process of establishing the RRFV in the SADC region. As the SADC Register and FCWC Record are being developed in parallel, there is an opportunity to share lessons learnt across the regions, and to consider this process in a broader pan-African perspective, exploring potential for alignment and harmonisation.