In a Statement to the 34th Session of the FAO Committee on Fisheries (COFI), the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF) has stated:
1. The International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF) welcomes this Agenda item COFI/2020/6, and its comprehensive Information Papers, particularly reporting progress under the FAO-SSF Umbrella Programme for the promotion and application of the SSF
Guidelines and related developments.
2. As summarized in COFI/2020/Inf.12, the Umbrella Programme has also supported several initiatives of ICSF in Africa, Asia and Latin
America to demonstrate how the SSF Guidelines can be put to use at the national, subnational and local levels. ICSF would like to take this opportunity to thank the FAO Fisheries Division for extending support
to ICSF to undertake these activities.
3. The FAO-SSF Umbrella Programe, needless to say, has the potential to be the engine to power the SSF-GSF mechanism. Therefore, ICSF would urge this Committee: firstly, to enhance the Umbrella Programme to benefit more countries and CSOs, as well as to strengthen the SSF-GSF mechanism; secondly, to broaden the scope of the Umbrella Programme to include initiatives to document how the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development indicators measure, in a targeted manner, the social wellbeing and development of the vulnerable and marginalized in marine
and inland fishing communities, including women; and thirdly, to encourage the Umbrella Programme to assist monitoring and evaluation
of all initiatives under the auspices of all actors, undertaken to implement the SSF Guidelines in a progressive manner.
2021 ICSF