• Nigeria will test a shared registry of authorized industrial fishing vessels

• Tool aims to curb illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing in six countries

• Illegal fishing in West Africa costs about $2.3 billion and 300,000 jobs yearly

Nigeria has committed to leading the pilot phase of the first regional registry of authorized fishing vessels in the Gulf of Guinea, according to a meeting held February 19 in Abuja between Adegboyega Oyetola, minister of Marine and Blue Economy, and the secretary-general of the Fisheries Committee for the West Central Gulf of Guinea (FCWC).

The registry is designed to strengthen efforts against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. The project involves creating a harmonized database of industrial vessels authorized to operate in the waters of the FCWC’s six member states: Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and Togo.

“This represents a major step forward in strengthening transparency, accountability and cooperation in fisheries governance across our shared waters,” Oyetola said, according to local outlet Shipping Position.

Nigeria will test the system’s feasibility, identify operational gaps and generate lessons to guide its rollout at the regional level. No official launch date or implementation timetable has yet been announced.

For West Africa’s coastal states, adopting integrated strategies that combine regulation, monitoring and regional cooperation is seen as critical to easing pressure from overfishing and IUU fishing on marine resources.

According to a March 2023 report by investigative journalism network IJ–Reportika, illegal fishing in West Africa results in losses of about $2.3 billion a year and the destruction of around 300,000 jobs across six countries in the region.

Stéphanas Assocle