Medidas de Gestao das Pescarias Marinhas e Aquicultura 2019 The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2018 | Page 110
PART 2 FAO FISHERIES AND AQUACULTURE IN ACTION
Externally, FAO is pursuing improvements in
several dimensions of qualit y with RFBs under
the umbrella of the Coordinating Working Part y
on Fisher y Statistics (CWP) (FAO, 2017i), an
international governance body for fisher y
statistical standards for which FAO provides the
secretariat. Since 1960, CWP members have
worked together in developing standard
statistical concepts and international
classifications, with the aim to ensure coherence
and eventually enable consistent regional and
global fisheries statistics.
Internally, FAO has engaged in a major effort to
develop an Organization-wide statistical quality
assurance framework, in which quality is defined as
the degree to which its statistical outputs fulfil
requirements in the following dimensions of
quality: relevance, accuracy and reliability,
timeliness and punctuality, coherence, accessibility
and clarity. As a baseline, FAO collects data
reported by Members through standard
questionnaires, collates them and processes them,
ensuring application of agreed standards and
estimating missing data where necessary. FAO has
established a series of mechanisms to ensure that
the best available information is submitted, revised
and validated, either directly or indirectly (e.g.
using consumption surveys or satellite images).
Improving fisheries dataset quality has historically
meant applying a number of best practices,
including:
ensuring the highest possible rate of response
by countries through collaboration with
national offices whenever possible;
improving the level of species breakdown (the
number of taxa reported doubled between 1996
and 2016);
prioritizing the best source of statistical
information, including external sources where
necessar y;
ensuring consistency through backward
revision of catch trends when improvements in
national data collection systems result in
abrupt changes in reported time series
(Garibaldi, 2012);
checking overall consistency across multiple
datasets through supply utilization accounts;
fostering use and feedback by increasing the
diversit y and accessibilit y of dissemination
channels (for example, online quer y panels, the
FAO Yearbook of Fishery and Aquaculture
Statistics and FishStatJ software, which
provides access to a variet y of fisher y
statistical datasets) (FAO, 2018a).
An example of improvement regards streamlining
of arrangements for improving consistency,
reducing discrepancies among published global
and regional datasets and reducing the reporting
burden for countries. Such arrangements include
the STATLANT standardized questionnaires
(since the 1970s) and formal agreements between
FAO and other CWP member organizations such
as Eurostat (since the 1980s), tuna RFMOs (since
the late 1990s) and the Southeast Asian Fisheries
Development Center (SEAFDEC) (since 2007).
Further work is now being conducted to expand
such agreements to other institutions such as the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD) and additional RFBs (e.g.
Regional Fisheries Committee for the Gulf of
Guinea [COREP], Fishery Committee for the
West Central Gulf of Guinea [FCWC], Regional
Commission for Fisheries [RECOFI], Western
Central Atlantic Fishery Commission
[WECAFC]). In addition, best practices on
streamlining statistical data workflow are being
developed. Formal data sharing agreements
among agencies should eventually address the six
main lines of activity in FAO’s vision of a
streamlined reporting mechanism for fishery
statistics:
alignment of calendars;
consistency in concepts, standards and
definitions;
mainstreamed data provision ser ving several
reporting requirements for Member Countries;
improved accessibilit y through harmonized
published formats;
active collaboration for analysis of gaps and
discrepancies;
transparency through systematic processing
and documentation of sources.
FAO’s corporate qualit y assurance framework is
now furthering this effort through improved
questionnaires, more systematic and standard
data processing methodologies, full traceabilit y
of decisions made and relevant supporting
metadata to ensure transparency. Eventually,
qualit y scores will be published for each FAO
statistical dataset.
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