EVALUATION

Recommendations
(1) Right sizing of fishing effort
Establish enabling conditions for right sizing of fishing effort such as equitable sharing in the
use/boundaries for fishing. Appropriate boundaries will prevent encroachment of fishers
with destructive fishing and/or illegal fishing gears or commercial fishing vessels within
municipal waters. This will ensure small fishers to have equal access to harvest the benefits
of increased fish catch resulting from conservation effort and not the other way around,
where large commercial fishers take advantage of the increased benefits.
(2) Gaining new or better employment
Use “better employment” as the primary indicator for Key Result B. Gaining “new
employment” can be measured as a separate indicator and assessed through a pilot
demonstration of at least one operating social enterprise in two most promising MKBAs.
Generation of new employment is feasible with at least a single operating and earning social
enterprise, meaning that the enterprise can afford to pay for labor and other social benefits
for its employees. While new employment maybe generated by a newly established
enterprise, its sustainability needs also to be ensured by demonstrating the operational
profitably for at least two to three cycles of operation.
(3) Developing social enterprises
Demonstrate preferably two social enterprises in the remaining years of the project in
two most promising MKBAs that would reach the status of established, operating and
earning enterprises;
Establish at least one PPP linked with at least one social enterprise; and
Work directly with agribusiness/processing firms that can provide the critical capacity
building for evolving profitable enterprises, notably technology, capital and markets. To
do this, ECOFISH Project needs to assist in establishing the enabling conditions (e.g.
organization of small fishers, availability of raw materials, etc.) to attract potential agribusiness
firms to invest, preferably through a business matching forum. The project can
select a suitable partnership and roll out a sustainable social enterprise development
through a phased approach beginning with a pilot in the most prepared MKBAs.
(4) Demonstrating market-based instruments
Accelerate the implementation of one pilot tested market-based instrument in a most
promising MKBA, preferably payment for ecosystem services (PES), similar to what the
project has demonstrated in providing 21-day Cash for Work (i.e., coastal clean-up and
waste management) jobs to affected fishers in VIP MKBA in 2014 to enforce seasonal
fishing closure of pelagic fish during its reproduction period. This PES scheme came in the
form of compensations received by affected fishers for earnings lost during a period of
fishery closure. The project needs to institute a long-term arrangement/partnership for PES
scheme beyond the pilot stage. In support of this effort, the use of marine spatial planning
(MSP) tool can be expanded to incorporate data generation of direct use values to serve as
inputs to cost and benefit analysis (CBA). An expanded MSP tool offers greater opportunity
for easier replication across LGUs due to less data requirements to assess the effectiveness
and viability of PES instruments.
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