Stakeholders worldwide are invited to submit their suggestions on the draft text

FAO Members have given FAO a specific mandate to promote social sustainability in the fisheries and aquaculture value chains, including recognising and protecting human and labour rights. In order to fulfil this commitment, the FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Division is developing a guidance to promote and facilitate the implementation of existing international instruments, conventions and standards to improve social practices by the private sector, including enforcing human and labour rights, decent work and social protection.

The FAO Guidance on Social Responsibility in the Fisheries and Aquaculture Value Chains will be a voluntary, non-binding, complementary and user-friendly tool, and will be built on existing international instruments.

The FAO Guidance will contain a general part and six sections of the fisheries and aquaculture value chains:  (1) Industrial Fishing, (2) Small-Scale Fishing, (3) Aquaculture Production, (4) Processing, (5) Distribution, and (6) Retailing.

The draft text of the second section “Small-scale fishing” of the FAO Guidance is open to stakeholders interested in commenting this work.

The draft will be available for comments and suggestions on this platform until Sunday 4 August 2024 (European time).

Please bear in mind while commenting, it is therefore of utmost importance to focus only on small-scale fishing activities. There will be a general part of the FAO Guidance that will contain the universal principles.

Comments and feedback should be submitted only via this platform.

If you face any problems, please contact Mariana Toussaint (Mariana.Toussaint@fao.org)