Liberia’s Fisheries Director General, Emma Metieh Glassco, held bilateral discussions with Ghanaian Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development and current Chair of FCWC, Mavis Hawa Koomson, on the sideline of the ongoing Fisheries Committee for the Eastern Central Atlantic (CECAF-FAO) meeting taking place in Liberia.
FCWC is the Fisheries Committee for the West Central Gulf of Guinea, a regional fisheries organization with a membership of six West African countries, including Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and Togo.
The Fisheries Committee for the West Central Gulf of Guinea (FCWC) was established in 2007 to facilitate cooperation in fisheries management among the member countries.
Those fisheries countries have several shared fish stocks and identified a need for cooperation and shared management of these resources.
The two fisheries officials, Wednesday July 12, 2023, discussed a wide range of issues aimed at enhancing fisheries development among member states of FCWC.
Some of those discussions were the upcoming 15th Ministerial meeting, scheduled to be held in Liberia in December 2023, implementation of regional closed fishing season, FCWC Regional Observer program and joint fisheries patrol, and a joint scientific research program.
They also discussed issues surrounding the fight against piracy in FCWC areas, collaboration between Liberia and Ghana at international meetings, implementation of the MoU between Liberia and Ghana to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU Fishing), discussion on the standard operating procedures (SOP) for MoU between Liberia and Ghana, and a discussion on cooperation between Liberia and Ghana for the development of Aquaculture in Liberia.
Meanwhile, following the closed door discussion Director Glassco and Minister Koomson, in a press briefing pledged to work collaboratively for the good of their countries.
The Ghanaian Fisheries Minister was led on a tour of NaFAA’s facilities, including its technical office at the Mesurado Pier near Coast Guard Base on Bushrod Island, where she visited the Fisheries Monitoring Center (FMC), the competent lab and the pier which the Government of Liberia is planning to transform into an industrial fishing port under the World Bank Liberia Sustainable Management Fisheries Project (LSMFP).
