Final Technical Report - ACP Fish II

1 BackgroundThe purpose of this project is to support the Directorate of Policy, Planning and Economics (DPPE) ofthe Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources (MFMR) in Namibia to devise a Management Plan forthe Namibian Hake Fishery, thus reinforcing its capacity to achieve ecological sustainability andeconomic profitability of the fishery.The results that will be achieved are:a draft Management Plan is devised in a participatory manner with input from stakeholdersthrough consultative meetings and a workshop.a final version of the Management Plan is devised and validated in a workshop bystakeholders.The consultancy work will be undertaken during two visits to Namibia. The first one has taken placein December 2010 and the second one during January and February 2011. This interim technicalreport outlines the progress made during the first visit.2 Issues raised regarding the Terms of ReferenceFollowing some delays in the approval of the tender, NFDS Africa signed the contract for thepreparation of the Management Plan for the Namibian Hake Fishery on 23 November 2010. Sincethe project had been scheduled to start on 15 October, work began immediately to adjust the workplan. Time constraints of Vilhjálmur Wiium (VW), the Team Leader, meant that field work has to becompleted by the end of February 2011. Therefore, the project needed to begin in 2010 toaccommodate these constraints. Following discussions with the MFMR and their keenness to moveahead quickly with the project agreement was met that the work would start in the beginning ofDecember.Vilhjálmur Wiium was able to begin work on 2 December as he was already in Namibia due to aprevious assignment and was able to start on very short notice. David Boyer (DB), the Key Expert 2,left the UK on 4 December, arriving the following day in Windhoek.In the Terms of Reference (ToR) it is specified that two workshops involving all stakeholders were tobe held during the first visit, one in Walvis Bay and the other in Lüderitz. During the first meetingwith MFMR, it came clear that MFMR felt that this would not be a wise strategy. In MFMR’s view itwas of utmost importance to bring the hake fishing industry to the first workshops. The otherstakeholders identified would be invited for the national two day workshop that are scheduled forthe second visit. In Lüderitz there are only three hake right holders out of a total of 38. Since a trip toLüderitz will take three days and some of these companies have representatives in Walvis Bay,MFMR advised that the initial workshop be held in Walvis Bay. To that workshop all hake rightholders were invited through the Hake Association, also those from Lüderitz.It was decided to take the advice of MFMR. Hence in the beginning of the second visit in January2011, the team will go to Lüderitz and have the one day workshop then with key stakeholders, alsomaking use of the trip to visit as many of the other stakeholders as possible.Apart from the adjustment of the Lüderitz workshop to the second visit, the project followed theToR as planned.NFDS Africa ‐ Interim Report for the Namibian Hake Management Plan Page 3