What is the Fisheries Governance Tool?
The Fisheries Governance Tool (FGT) is a neutral, indicator-based diagnostic tool that provides stakeholders with a comprehensive and reliable understanding of how a country’s fisheries management system is performing and progressing over time.
Making Progress Toward Sustainably-Managed Fisheries
Nations around the world are recognizing the environmental, economic and social benefits of moving toward sustainably-managed fisheries. As a result, many of these countries are considering changes to the policies and laws that govern them.
To make informed decisions about what changes are needed – and possible – it is critical to have a comprehensive and reliable understanding of how a country's fisheries management system is performing. Yet, stakeholders have not had a means to gain this level of understanding. This makes it harder for them to advance, or sometimes advocate for, the changes needed to enable and support a transition toward sustainably-managed fisheries.
The new Fisheries Governance Tool (FGT) changes this dynamic. The tool takes in data from users and applies a diagnostic framework to analyze how a country's fisheries management system is performing. This allows for an objective and repeatable evaluation using an evidence-based approach, with scientific rigor.
Is the Fisheries Governance Tool right for you?
The FGT can help fishery stakeholders in many ways, including to:
- Conduct comprehensive – and reproducible – self-assessment of a nation's fisheries governance structure and capacity;
- Evaluate the performance of a nation's fisheries management system as a whole, at a point in time, and track progress toward targets;
- Assess and track progress among individual fisheries in a single country over time;
- Assess and track progress across several countries;
- Identify gaps in a nation's fisheries management structure, function, or resources; and
- Track emerging trends, issues, or topics of concern related to a nation's fisheries.
