Medidas de Gestao das Pescarias Marinhas e Aquicultura 2019 The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2018 | Page 97

THE STATE OF WORLD FISHERIES AND AQUACULTURE 2018
efforts to move towards SDG-compliant
investments, integrated networks for reducing
IUU fishing and management of the risks of food
production from aquaculture.
The United Nations Conference on Trade and
Development (UNCTAD), FAO and the United
Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
have been working together to provide
countries with a comprehensive understanding
of the main driving forces and various
concurrent processes (e.g. W TO and Agenda
2030) associated with trade of fish and fish
products. In July 2016, these agencies issued a
joint statement, “Reg ulating fisheries subsidies
must be an integral part of the implementation
of the 2030 sustainable development agenda”,
during the fourteenth session of UNCTAD,
which emphasized the need to address harmful
fisheries subsidies as specified in SDG target
14.6 (By 2020, prohibit certain forms of
fisheries subsidies which contribute to
overcapacit y and overfishing, eliminate
subsidies that contribute to illegal, unreported
and unreg ulated fishing and refrain from
introducing new such subsidies, recognizing
that appropriate and effective special and
differential treatment for developing and least
developed countries should be an integral part
of the World Trade Organization fisheries
subsidies negotiation).
Investing in fisheries for sustainability
The focus of fisheries governance and
development has broadened to include not only
conservation of resources and the environment,
i.e. a biological conception of sustainability, but
also recognition of the social agency, well-being
and livelihoods of people working in the sector.
Greater weight is placed on the role of fisheries as
sources of livelihoods (e.g. income, food and
employment), sites of expression of cultural values
and a buffer against shocks for poor communities.
The three pillars of sustainabilit y –
environmental, economic and social – are now
more firmly embedded in fisheries management.
Key fisheries instruments provide the context and
the framework for investment in fisheries to
achieve the SDGs. Both the SSF Guidelines (FAO,
2015a) and VGGT (FAO, 2012a) ser ve as policy
frameworks for making small-scale fisheries
more sustainable.
Subsequently, the side event “Fish Trade,
Fisheries Subsidies and SDG 14” at the
eleventh W TO Ministerial Conference
(December 2017) brought together UNCTAD,
FAO, the Commonwealth Secretariat, the
European Union, Argentina, Norway, Papua
New Guinea and representatives of the private
sector and civil societ y to build political
consensus and deepen understanding of trade-
related aspects of SDG 14. Such joint activities
help to avoid duplication of effort and
redundancy and to improve allocation of the
resources of international organizations for the
benefit of their members. A number of development partners (such as the
Oak Foundation, Kf W Development Bank, the
German Agency for International Cooperation
[GIZ], the United States Agency for
International Development [USAID] and other
organizations) and investment funds (such as
the consortium of funds supporting the
Principles for Investment in Sustainable Wild-
Caught Fisheries, launched at the World Ocean
Summit 2018 [Environmental Defense Fund,
Rare/Meloy Fund and Encourage Capital, 2018])
are now including CCRF, the SSF Guidelines
and VGGT in investment and action-oriented
strategies relevant to fisheries.
Furthering implementation of the Code of
Conduct for Responsible Fisheries To support these commitments to sustainable
small-scale fisheries development, it is crucial to
develop the understanding and knowledge base
about small-scale fisheries. Several initiatives
are under way to improve and expand existing
empirical information and to quantif y the
importance of the marine and inland small-
scale fisheries sector, including an update of the
World Bank (2012) study Hidden harvest: the
global contribution of capture fisheries (see
With people consuming more fish than ever, the
Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries
(CCRF) (FAO, 1995) is increasingly relevant as
the g uiding framework for implementing the
principles of sustainable development in fisheries
and aquaculture. New initiatives being taken to
advance the implementation of CCRF include
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